“Maturity, Bokonon tells us, is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists”

“Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.”

“Maturity...is knowing what your limitations are...Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.”

“I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us.”

“Life cheats us with shadows. We ask it for pleasure. It gives it to us with bitterness and disappointment in its train.”

“We must realize that growth is but an adolescent phase of life which stops when physical maturity is reached. If growth continues in the period of maturity it is called obesity or cancer. Prescribing growth as the cure for the energy crisis has all the logic of prescribing increasing quantities of food as a remedy for obesity.”