“Peter, you're twelve years old. I'm ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice.”

“Cure" is one of the most precious words in the English language. It's a short word. A clean and simple word. But it isn't so easy a thing as it sounds. There are questions like: How will this affect us in ten years? In twenty? What will it do to our children? Our children's children?”

“The world is not divided up into bits and classified for those from four to six, from six to eight, from eight to twelve and so on through our three score and ten years, with a special bit for octogenarians, but the same world for all of us, undivided, its riches spread out for us to choose from according to our ages in spirit rather than our ages in years”

“People talk to old people like they're children.'Oh you're very old aren't you?' Yeah I'm old. I'm not stupid.”

“We get stuck in old thought and behavior patterns that may have been effective when we were twelve months or twelve years old, but now only serve to hold us back. And, while those around us may have no problem correcting our minor flaws, they let the big ones slide, because it would mean attacking who we are.”

“They are surprisingly tall--eight-year-olds. They are surprisingly like real people. Of course your own babies are always real to you, they are all there from the word go, but even strangers' children look like proper people by the aged of eight...”