If the sound of happy children is grating on your ears, I don't think it's the children who need to be adjusted.

There's no weakness as great as false strength.

One of the best ways of repressing emotions is artificial certainty.

The manic relief that comes from the fantasy that we can with one savage slash cut the chains of the past and rise like a phoenix, free of all history, is generally a tipping point into insanity, akin to believing that we can escape the endless constraints of gravity, and fly off a tall building. “I’m freeeee… SPLAT!”.