Robertson Davies on youth

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

To be apt in quotation is a splendid and dangerous gift. Splendid, because it ornaments a man’s speech with other men’s jewels; dangerous, for the same reason.

The wit’s desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement.

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.
But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

Mark Twain1835–1910“Brief Biographical Sketch of George Washington”, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches (1867), ed. John Paul

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.

Mark Twain1835–1910Autobiography of Mark Twain, Mark Twain Project edition, Volume 1 (2010), p. 210