Josh

“As soon as one promises not to do something, it becomes the one thing above all others that one most wishes to do.”
― Georgette Heyer, Venetia

“All boys wish to be manly; but they often try to become so by copying the vices of men rather than their virtues. They see men drinking, smoking, swearing; so these poor little fellows sedulously imitate such bad habits, thinking they are making themselves more like men. They mistake rudeness for strength, disrespect to parents for independence. They read wretched stories about boy brigands and boy detectives, and fancy themselves heroes when they break the laws, and become troublesome and mischievous. Out of such false influences the criminal classes are recruited. Many a little boy who only wishes to be manly, becomes corrupted and debased by the bad examples around him and the bad literature which he reads. The cure for this is to give him good books, show him truly noble examples from life and history, and make him understand how infinitely above this mock-manliness is the true courage which ennobles human nature.”
― James Freeman Clarke, Every-Day Religion

“Pride and hope and desire like crushed herbs in his heart sent up vapours of maddening incense before the eyes of his mind.”
― James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”
― Zelda Fitzgerald