“Growing up changes morethan playground gamesand body shapes.”

“My purpose is to tell of bodies that have been changed into shapes of different kinds.”

“Oh hours of childhood,when behind each shape more than the past appearedand what streamed out before us was not the future.We felt our bodies growing and were at times impatient to be grown up, half for the sakeof those with nothing left but their grownupness.”

“A world grows up around me. Am I shaping it, or do its predetermined contours guide my hand?”

“The average personality re-shapes frequently, every few years even our bodies undergo a complete overhaul-desirable or not, it is a natural thing that we should change.”

“Youth is terrible: it is a stage trod by children in buskins and a variety of costumes mouthing speeches they've memorized and fanatically believe but only half understand. And history is terrible because it so often ends up a playground for the immature; a playground for the young Nero, a playground for the young Bonaparte, a playground for the easily roused mobs of children whose simulated passions and simplistic poses suddenly metamorphose into a catastrophically real reality.”