“Too many adults wish to 'protect' teenagers when they should be stimulating them to read of life as it is lived.”

“Wishing for things could sometimes call them forth. Wishing to study could incite a desire to do so, stimulate an interest. Reading about a region could pique interest in it, make you want to travel there and experience it. But passion could not be piped forth, could not be lured from its den by any known device or trick. It seemed to have a stubborn, independent life of its own, slumbering when it would be convenient for it to dance, springing forth when there was no reason for it, nowhere for it to spend itself.”

“Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.”

“When we neglect our Bible study we often feel guilty. When you skip a meal do you feel guilty? No, you feel hungry. The Bible is food for our soul. When we fail to read it we should not feel guilty, we should feel hungry. Guilt is fueled by obligation hunger is fueled by desire.”

“But thoughtless ingratitude is the armour of the young; without it, how would they ever get through life? The old wish the young well, but they wish them ill also: they would like to eat them up, and absorb their vitality, and remain immortal themselves. Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past - the past of others, loaded on their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace.”

“I had a desire to see something besides my own shores, if only to be content to return to them someday. If I wish to live in my native land and love her, it should not be out of ignorance.”

“Before this, when I'd admired my colleagues for being so calm, I had creditied them with a greater level of maturity and wisdom than I had. I now wonder if I was being too complimentary and that instead, like me, they'd just lost their give-a-shit too.”