I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.

It is good for children to find themselves facing the elements of a fairy tale - they are well-equipped to deal with these

Often the adult book is not for you, not yet, or will only be for you when you're ready. But sometimes you will read it anyway, and you will take from it whatever you can. Then, perhaps, you will come back to it when you're older, and you will find the book has changed because you have changed as well, and the book is wiser, or more foolish, because you are wiser or more foolish than you were as a child.

At home, my father ate all the most burnt pieces of toast. 'Yum!' he'd say, and 'Charcoal! Good for you!' and 'Burnt toast! My favorite!' and he'd eat it all up. When I was much older he confessed to me that he had not ever liked burnt toast, had only eaten it to prevent it from going to waste, and, for a fraction of a moment, my entire childhood felt like a lie, it was as if one of the pillars of belief that my world had been built upon had crumbled into dry sand.

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled.

უფროსები გატკეპნილ გზაზე დადიან. ბავშვებს უცნობიბილიკები იზიდავთ. უფროსები კმაყოფილებით თელავენერთსა და იმავე სავალს, ასჯერ, თუნდაც ათასჯერ; ერთხელაცარ მოაფიქრდებათ, გვერდზე გადაუხვიონ, როდოდენდრონისბუჩქებში იშლიგინონ და ღობეებში იძრომიალონ.

He told me that the phrase “the happiest days of your life” referred to your school days.This seemed nonsensical to me then, and I suspected it of being either adult propaganda or, more likely, confirmation of my creeping suspicion that the majority of adults actually had no memories of being children.

I should mention here that librarians tell me never to tell this story, and especially never to paint myself as a feral child who was raised in libraries by patient librarians; the tell me they are worried that people will misinterpret my story and use it as an excuse to use their libraries as free day care for their children.

I do not think I liked being a child very much. It seemed like something one was intended to endure, not enjoy: a fifteen-year-long sentence to a world less interesting than the one that the other race inhabited.