It happens to many teenagers-that moment when you feel full of resentment or distrust for those adults you once loved unquestioningly.

There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep.

What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.

Gender mattered a whole lot less to Shakespeare than it seems to matter to us.

She felt detached from her family, and thought it strange how they had lavished so much attention on her, as a child, and then at some appointed, prearranged time they seemed to stop the flow of affection and being the expectations - as if, for a brief phrase, you were expected to absorb love (and get enough), and then, for a much longer and more serious phase, you were expected to fulfill certain obligations.

People only ask questions when they're ready to hear the answers.

I always thought that you could do worse than find yourself dying in the company of a devoted former student.