There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.

A sick child is always the mother’s property; her own feelings generally make it so.

I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?

I was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old.

Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.

Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.

Bright youth passes as quickly as thought.

No one’s serious at seventeen.

No time to marry, no time to settle down, I’m a young woman, and ain’t done runnin’ round.

Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

Childhood has no forebodings—but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.

Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.