“Children have a different convention of the fearful until they have been taught the proper things to be shocked at.”

“One thing vampire children have to be taught early on is, don't run with wooden stakes.”

“If he knew, if he was told in so many words, he would have to do the conventional thing, he would have to express the conventional shock and horror. But knowing without analyzing, knowing in a place that went deeper than words, he could see it, know it, accept it.”

“Not naive,' Conch shell had corrected him. 'He simply has not been taught to fear the things you fear.”

“It was not, of course, a proper thing to do. But then I have never pretended, nor will ever pretend, that Emily was a proper child. Books are not written about proper children. They would be so dull nobody would read them.”

“He feared that principle, active principle, had been wanting; that they had never been properly taught to govern their inclinations and tempers by that sense of duty which can alone suffice. They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice.”