If all power corrupts, then a doctor, who literally holds life and death in his hands, must be at particular risk.

Children live in occupied territory. The brave and the foolhardy openly rebel against authority, whether harsh or benign. But most tread warily, outwardly accommodating themselves to alien mores and edicts while living in secret their iconoclastic and subversive lives.

People were excited by violence. What, after all, was the sexual act but a voluntarily endured assault, a momentary death?

All fiction is largely autobiographical and much autobiography is, of course, fiction.

gossip ... was like any other commodity in the marketplace. You received it only if you had something of value to give.

If from infancy you treat children as gods, they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.

It's possible to fight intolerance, stupidity and fanaticism when they come separately. When you get all three together it's probably wiser to get out, if only to preserve your sanity.