“Of these older people many wear clothing reminiscent in some detail of home – an embroidered waistcoat or stomacher, or a gaily colored handkerchief, or a coat with large cuffs and fancy buttons. All these things are carefully avoided by the young, most of whom have learned to speak English and to affect the latest style of clothing. The girls wear ready-made dresses or shirt waists, and some of them look quite pretty. Some of the young men you would take to be Americans, of the type of clerks, but for the fact that they wear their hats in the room.”
“There were hardened criminals and innocent men too poor to give bail; old men, and boys literally not yet in their teens. They were the drainage of the great festering ulcer of society […] Into this wild-beast tangle these men had been born without their consent, they had taken part in it because they could not help it; that they were in jail was no disgrace to them, for the game had never been fair, the dice were loaded. They were swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they had been trapped and put out of the way by the swindlers and thieves of millions of dollars.”
“And if you’ve ever wondered what happens when a person close to you is taken too soon - and it’s always too soon - you may find other truths here, truths that may break the grip of sadness in your life, that may set you free from guilt, that may even bring you back to this world from wherever you are hiding. And then you will never feel alone.”
“Even if you are aware that you may be struck down today and are firmly resolved to an inevitable death, if you are slain with an unseemly appearance, you will show your lack of previous resolve, will be despised by your enemy, and will appear unclean. For this reason it is said that both old and young should take care of their appearance.”
“His father’s whistle, his mother’s mutterings, the screech of an unseen maniac were to him now so many voices offending and threatening to humble the pride of his youth.”
“I named her when I was a toddler, and now I don’t get a do-over, and me and my sisters all have to call her Gamma-Gamma. It’s embarrassing. I guess we all make mistakes when we’re young.”
“It was a once in a lifetime thing. I hate to think it but I bet it’s true. It’s too bad for us that our once in a lifetime happened when were too young to handle it.”
“It don’t matter how young you are or how old you get or how brittle your bones are or how leaky your gray cells, you are still going to flat like a happy ending.”
“In the orchard was a cottage, and in this cottage lived Pippi Longstocking. She was nine years old, and she lived all alone. She had neither mother nor father, which was really rather nice, for in this way there was no one to tell her to go to bed just when she was having the most fun, and no one to make her take cod-liver-oil when she felt like eating peppermints.”
“There is more to this thing of love than meets the eye... I think maybe they’re all right when they say there are some things I won’t know anything about until I’m older.”
“Rebecca held out her arms and the old aunt crept into them feebly, as she did on that day when she opened the grave of her buried love and showed the dead face, just for an instant, to a child. Warmth and strength and life flowed into the aged frame from the young one.”
Johnny is relishing the annoyance he causes in his older sister and his younger brother. Roy is the young, stupid, naïve little kid. He always gave into his sister, loving her especially when she was like one of those “stern grocery store moms”. He gets frustrated when being left out because he seems like a young little pest. He is upset by the constant loss of the magic and happiness that was once in his life.
“Now, puppies, like all young things, are by nature mischievous. They will tear up gloves, stockings, and soft shoes if the oppotunity occurs, and if not corrected for ding so.”
“Morris was too young to play with chemicals, said Betty, he might blow up the house. He was too little to play hockey, said Victor, he might get hurt.”
“It’s not very common for people to die when they are young. But sometimes it does happen. It could be because the person has a serious disease... or it can happen in an accident, like a car crash. Sometimes a baby is already dead when it’s born. This could happen to a kitten or to other baby animals as well.”
″ ‘What,’ cried I, ‘were you in the English army?’
‘That was I,’ said Alan. ‘But I deserted to the right side at Prestonpans–and that’s some comfort.’
I could scarcely share this view: holding desertion under arms for an unpardonable fault in honour. But for all I was so young, I was wiser than say my thought. ‘Dear, dear,’ says I, ‘the punishment is death.’ ”
“You are young, but you are strong and powerful above your years, and can better protect them then I could. I see darker days yet coming- but it is His will, and who shall doubt that that is right? I pray you not to make your birth and lineage known as yet- it can do no good, and it may do harm-”
“But in Australia a model child is - I say it not without thankfulness- an unknown quantity. It may be that the miasmas of naughtiness develop best in the sunny brilliancy, of our atmosphere. It may be that the land and the people are young-hearted together, and the children’s spirits not crushed and saddened by the shadow of long years’ sorrowful history.”
“Sounder might come home again. But you must learn to lose, child. The Lord teaches the old to lose. The young don’t know how to learn it. Some people is born to keep. Some is born to lose. We was born to lose, I reckon….”
“Scarce had he advanced toward the wood when all the great trees, the bushes, and brambles gave way of themselves to let him pass through; he walked up to the castle which he saw at the end of a large avenue which he went into; and what a little surprised him was that he saw none of his people could follow him, because the trees closed again as soon as he passed through them. However, he did not cease from continuing his way; a young and amorous prince is always valiant.”
“Goalkeeping was the main interest in Sim’s life. In his nursery days the one indoor pastime that satisfied him was when his mother kicked a rubber ball from the living-room into the kitchen, while Sim stood goal at the middle door. It was rare even then that he let one pass.”
“For instance, he used when he was young to find it difficult to tell the truth always, but he wasn’t a very clever liar, because he couldn’t help blowing softly through his trunk when he was telling a lie...”
“His face was the colour of a well-worn polished brown boot. The skin was creased but still young and suppple-not that you could see much of his face for it was almost entirely hidden by a head and beard of wild white hair.”
But when the Lama says they have been drawn to him by destiny, and insists that Theodore, Mrs Jones, and her young Chinese courier Lung hold the clue to the birth of the long-awaited Tulku, or reincarnated spiritual master, there seems to be no escape.
“When I was young I told a tale of buried gold, and men from leagues around dug in the woods. I dug myself. But why? I thought the tale of treasure might be true.”
“On Dinah’s first day at school she senses something is wrong. The kids work even during playtime, and are neat and behave well but what is the secret of the Headmaster’s control over them, and why are they afraid?”
“The magic properties of this ring were uncommonly strong, for no sooner had Bulbo put it on, but lo and behold, he appeared a personable, agreeable young Prince enough-with a fine complexion, fair hair, rather stout, and with bandy legs; but these were encased in a such a beautiful pair of yellow morocco boots that nobody remarked them.”
“He wants to just be an ordinary kid, but, when he was young, he caught a deadly heart disease that caused his ordinary life to be turned into an absolute mess.”
″ ‘And now, Tom, my boy,’ said the Squire, ‘remember you are going, at your own earnest request, to be chucked into this great school, like a young bear, with all your troubles before you -earlier than we should have sent you perhaps. If schools are what they were in my time, you’ll see a great many cruel blackguard things done, and hear a deal of foul, bad talk. But never fear. You tell the truth, keep a brave and kind heart, and never listen to or say anything you wouldn’t have your mother and sister hear, and you’ll never feel ashamed to come home, or we to see you.’ ”
“To Baby
Oh, what shall my blue eyes go see?
Shall it be pretty Quack-Quack to-day?
Or the Peacock upon the Yew Tree?
Or the dear little white Lambs at play?
Say Baby.
For Baby is such a young Petsy,
And Baby is such a sweet Dear.
And Baby is growing quite old now-
She’s just getting on for a year.”