“I must take issue with the term 'a mere child,' for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult.”
“I felt my attention wandering off. It generally does at the phrase "mere child.”
“Time is not the great teacher. Experience is. A man may live a whole life, but if he never leaves his home to experience that life, he dies knowing nothing. A mere child who has suffered and lived can be the wiser of the two.”
“Travel broadens, they say. My personal experience has been that, in the short term at any rate, it merely flattens, aiming its steam-roller of deadlines and details straight at one's daily life, leaving a person flat and gasping at its passage.”
“I believe that everyone else my age is an adult whereas I am merely in disguise.”
“Self-education is the only possible education; the rest is mere veneer laid on the surface of a child's nature.”