“How different life appears in retrospect. How wistful we become, looking back on such chaotic chapters as adolescence, when personal misfortune and hope alike are boundless, experienced exclusively in the extreme. We do our utmost to escape our youth, because we’re convinced there’s a world beyond, just waiting to be discovered. Youth eventually passes, of course; only then do we turn around, and we’re shocked by the banal realization that we can never go back to the magic of that period. The full force of some experiences takes years to unfold. That, too, is part of youth: we enrich and injure each other without even knowing it.”