So much of life was stillness then, when we were young, or so it seems now; a biding stillness; a vigilance. We were waiting in our as yet unfashioned world, scanning the future as the boy and I had scanned each other, like soldiers in the field, watching for what was to come.
Adolescence. Is it the first time in life we discover that we have something terrible to hide from those who love us?
Which is why places like this always have to pin their hopes for the future on young people. They're the only ones who don't remember that things actually used to be better. That can be a blessing.
I saw how young they were, boys with apple cheeks, too young to shave. Like me.
When I was young, I asked more of people than they could give; everlasting friendship, endless feeling.
When you're young, you think everything you do is disposable. You move from now to now, crumpling time up in your hands, tossing it away.
A man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.
Young men are almost all subject to a law which seems inexplicable but is in fact to be accounted for by their very youth and headlong pursuit of pleasure. Rich or poor, they never have enough money for the necessities of life, whereas they can always find enough for their whims.