If I Knew What I Know Now Quotes & Sayings

They should be proud of everything you've endured. If my parents had any idea how low I've sunk ... I don't know what they'd say. If Maxon's parents knew, I'm sure they'd have kicked me out by now. I'm not fit for this." She breathed out, struggling to confess.
I leaned forward, putting my hands on hers. "I think this change of heart would prove otherwise, Celeste. — Kiera Cass

When We Two Parted

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow -
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me -
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met -
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears. — George Gordon Byron

If I knew then what I know now, I would still be dreaming BIG today. — Tim Storey

My main goal is to stay alive. To keep fooling myself into hanging around. To keep getting up every day. Right now I live without inspiration. I go day to day and do the work because it's all I know. I know that if I keep moving I stand a chance. I must keep myself going until I find a reason to live. I need one so bad. On the other hand maybe I don't. Maybe it's all bullshit. Nothing I knew from my old life can help me here. Most of the things that I believed turned out to be useless. Appendages from someone else's life.
Everything I have I would give to not know what I know. To not feel emptiness as my constant companion. To not look into this room and be reminded why I'm in it. I'm not getting enough air. The room feels so small all of a sudden. It's pathetic to be this lonely and know it. To keep breathing. To be silent and alone. And to know. — Henry Rollins

I know the truth, and I will tell you now: He was admired, loved, cheered, honored, respected. In life as well as in death. A great man, he is. A great man, he was. A great man he will be. He died that day because his body had served its purpose. His soul had done what it came to do, learned what it came to learn, and then was free to leave. And I knew, as Denny sped me toward the doctor who would fix me, that if I had already accomplished what I set out to accomplish here on earth, if I had already learned what I was meant to learn, I would have left the curb one second later than I had, and I would have been killed instantly by that car. But I was not killed. Because I was not finished. I still had work to do. — Garth Stein

I would never have chosen that life for myself, I know. But God knew what he was doing. And everything I went through turned out to make songs like we write that touch people that have to go through the same kind of things. And if I hadn't gone through what I went through I wouldn't be right here right now. And I'm just talking about how God makes good out of bad, usually all the time, he can always do that. It's just that God works everything together for the good of those who love him. And I'm glad I've gone through what I did. — Lacey Sturm

If I had a life with Woods to look forward to I knew I could fight whatever darkness that tried to take me. Before Woods, I didnt know what I was living for. In my search to find myself, Id found so much more. I knew now why I wanted to live. I understood love. I had found it. — Abbi Glines

You were gullible," he said. And then, "When you were really little, you hated carrots. You wouldn't eat them. But then I told you that if you ate carrots, you'd get X-ray vision. And you believed me. You believed everything I said."
I did. I really did.
I believed him when he said that carrots could give me X-ray vision. I believed him when he told me that he'd never cared about me. And then, later that night, when he tried to take it back, I guess I believed him again. Now I didn't know what to believe. I just knew I didn't believe in him anymore. — Jenny Han

What do you want me to say?" he asked, his voice sharp and moody.
"That I had a moment of weakness when I saw it?That for an instant I felt the pang of being homesick? Yeah, I did. There, you now know the Dark-Hunter who has no soul has a heart. Are you happy? "
"I already knew you had a heart. "
He stopped at a red light and looked at her. A fierce frown creased his brow as if he were trying to figure her out.
"Believe it or not," she continued,
"it shows in everything you do. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

God knows suffering, not because he created it, but because He experiences it with us ... It is also true that although God knows suffering, He doesn't explain it. I waited and searched and beat myself up for that, and I know now that it just flat-out doesn't happen. God only walks us through it and out into a place where we can once again be free. He does this not because we believe some rigid this or that about Him. He does it because He believes in us. He doesn't ask us to go out into the world telling people why they suffer. Even if we knew why, it wouldn't hurt any less. What we need to know is how to help each other live with it, and live well. — Nancy Rue

What can I say? If I knew in 1934 what I know now, I would have remained in the navy. I didn't know that this was going to happen and I didn't know that Germany was going to lose the war and be in ruins. — Oswald Pohl

I'm angry at Chris. I'm hurt. Well, you know what I fear? This is my fear. This moment when, once again, you shut me out
and I'm alone. If you were going to leave me alone, you should have walked away before now, when I still knew how to breathe without you. — Lisa Renee Jones

I want to love somebody because I want to be loved. In a rabbit-fear I may hurl myself under the wheels of the car because the lights terrify me, and under the dark blind death of the wheels I will be safe. I am very tired, very banal, very confused. I do not know who I am tonight. I wanted to walk until I dropped and not complete the inevitable circle of coming home. I have lived in boxes above, below, and down the hall from girls who think hard, feel similarly, and long companionably, and I have not bothered to cultivate them because I did not want to, could not, sacrifice the time. People know who I am, and the harder I try to know who they are, the more I forget their names - I want to be alone, and yet there are times when the liquid eye and the cognizant grin of a small monkey would send me into a crying fit of brotherly love. I work and think alone. I live with people, and act. I love and cherish both. If I knew now what I wanted I would know when I saw it, who he was. — Sylvia Plath

Brain: You don't want this.
Hormones: Dude, this is EXACTLY what I want.
B: No, not like this - she's wasted.
H: What's your point?
B: She won't remember this, and if she does, she'll be angry.
H: Do you see where her hand is? God, that feels good. Can't you feel that?
B: She's drunk. You can't do this. It's wrong
H: I want to do this.
B: Really? You want to go to school and say you scored with Bethany Milbury when she was so drunk she barely knew her name?
H:
H:
H: You're an asshole. I hate you.
B: She needs to eat something and drink some water. Don't let her drink anymore beer.
H:
H: Yeah, I know
B: She'll love you for taking care of her. She'll love that you respected her.
H: Five more minutes? Just five?
B: Now.
H: I can't believe you're making me do this. — Laurie Halse Anderson

You see him and you think me and I knew if you saw him first you would be afraid because it is frightening! I am frightened! I have to turn into him! He's already been all the Saturdays it takes to be that Saturday, but whatever happened is still coming for me, I still have to stand up for the hurts and the grief that made him and I can't not do it, but knowing I will is like looking at a hot stove and knowing you're going to touch it, knowing you're going to burn, and feeling the blisters and the peeling before even you reach out your hand. I have to feel it now, all the time, and I don't even know what the stove is. — Catherynne M Valente

You want money; I know that much. But what of power, Nell?" The word sent a frisson down her spine. Power: what he was exercising right now, holding her riveted with only his words and the light press of his wicked fingers. What a terrible power, too - what a terrible context in which to discover such a power existed. Better for her sake if he'd exercised the clumsier forms: raw strength, muscle, a shout. Brute force she knew well enough. — Meredith Duran

If I knew exactly what I know now and had it to do over, I'd be a switch hitter. No telling what I could have done. — Hank Aaron

Don't let me die. Not now, he begged.
Why? she demanded to know.
Because I deserve to live.
A hand suddenly gripped his wrist.
He wondered if the hold came from the realms of the gods. But he didn't care. All he knew was what the Goddess was whispering to him, He'll never let you go. How could you have ever doubted him? — Melina Marchetta

If men used as much care in uprooting vices and implanting virtues as they do in discussing problems, there would not be so much evil and scandal in the world, or such laxity in religious organizations. On the day of judgment, surely, we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done; not how well we have spoken but how well we have lived. Tell me, where now are all the masters and teachers whom you knew so well in life and who were famous for their learning? Others have already taken their places and I know not whether they ever think of their predecessors. During life they seemed to be something; now they are seldom remembered. — Thomas A Kempis

I was convinced by now that his feelings for Laoghaire were only those of a chivalrous friendship, but I didn't know what he might do if he knew that his uncle had seduced the girl and got her with child. — Diana Gabaldon

As with many things in life-what we know at 30we wish we knew at 20-what we know at 40we wish we knew at 25and so on. 'If I knew then, what I know now' is the old adage that has been said for generations. — Kim Mitchell

What happened was that, all unconscious of what this ennui meant, I wearied of the motion, wearied of the jobless seas of alcohol, wearied of the blunt, bluff, hearty, and totally meaningless friendships wearied of wandering through the forests of desperate women, wearied of the work which fed me only in the most brutally literal sense. Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced. I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be the only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home, But again, I think I knew, at the very bottom of my heart, exactly what I was doing when I took the boat for France. — James Baldwin

The Resistance needs you. I need you. What do you say?" Jacob suddenly stood. He did not answer but rather cleared their dishes and washed them in the sink. "Your father doesn't see what we see," Avi said after a long silence, as if he knew exactly what Jacob was thinking. "You know that. You've heard us arguing. You've heard what he's said. He doesn't see it. That breaks my heart. But there's nothing more I can do about it. If he won't save himself, we're going to have to take matters into our own hands." "But if I join you, what will happen to them?" "I can't give you answers, Jacob," Avi replied. "I can't promise you they'll be safe. I hope they will be. But I don't really know. All I can do is tell you the truth, which is this: the moment of reckoning is at hand. I've made my choice. Now you must make yours. — Joel C. Rosenberg

Anne, I don't want to live ... Now listen, life is lovely, but I Can't Live It. I can't even explain. I know how silly it sounds ... but if you knew how it Felt. To be alive, yes, alive, but not be able to live it. Ay that's the rub. I am like a stone that lives ... locked outside of all that's real ... Anne, do you know of such things, can you hear???? I wish, or think I wish, that I were dying of something for then I could be brave, but to be not dying, and yet ... and yet to [be] behind a wall, watching everyone fit in where I can't, to talk behind a gray foggy wall, to live but to not reach or to reach wrong ... to do it all wrong ... believe me, (can you?) ... what's wrong. I want to belong. I'm like a jew who ends up in the wrong country. I'm not a part. I'm not a member. I'm frozen. — Anne Sexton

So many times have I heard the common lament, "If only I could go back to that age, knowing what I now know!" Those words amuse me profoundly, for in truth, the lament should be, "If only I could reclaim the lust and the joy I knew then! — R.A. Salvatore

When I sat on the chair at 5-0, I was like, 'Okay, now you can try to break her, and if not, you have the serve.' So I was a little bit more relaxed since I had a few chances to do that. But I still knew I could break her. Then suddenly I did a winner from the backhand, and I was so happy. I didn't really know what was going to happen, and I just had tears in my eyes, I was just so, so happy. — Petra Kvitova

I did not know what to answer, because it would be too sudden and too direct, but I knew in my heart that what I wanted was everything that could be between a woman and a man; not at first, of course, but later, when we had found our other mountain, or our wilderness, or wherever it was we might go to hide ourselves from the world. There was no need to rehearse all that now. The point was that I was prepared to follow her anywhere if she would let me. — Daphne Du Maurier

He had proved nothing, he had made no viable gesture of atonement, and he knew now that he probably never would. If he could have talked with Quint's ghost now he could only have said: "I'm sorry; there's nothing more I can do."
And Quint, he knew, would have said: "Right; you're absolutely right about that. ( ... )"
How then could he feel so good. What possible right did he have to be at peace with himself?
He didn't know. All he knew that day ( ... ) all he knew with any clarity was that he was nineteen years old, that the war was over, and that he was alive. — Richard Yates

You know, Junie, you're fourteen now. I think you can certainly manage to put together a sandwich ...
The thing is, if my mother had any idea what I had in my backpack, she would have made me that sandwich. If she knew that I'd searched and searched the house until I finally found the little key to the fireproof box buried in the bottom of her underwear drawer, if she knew that I'd unlocked the box and taken my passport out, that I had it with me right that very second in a Ziploc bag in the bottom of my backpack, if she knew why I had it there, if she knew even a bit of all that, she might have made me that PBJ. She wouldn't have said, "You're fourteen now," like she thought I was some kind of responsible adult. No. If she knew about my plan, she would have said, "you're only fourteen." She would have told me that I was crazy to think about going to England with I was only fourteen. — Carol Rifka Brunt

Even in the weak morning light trickling through the bakery's window, Wylan could see how weary Colm looked. "I made some big mistakes."
Wylan drew a line on the floor with his finger. "You gave him someone to run to. No matter what he did or what went wrong. I think that's bigger than the big mistakes."
"See now? That's why he likes you. I know, I know - it's none of my business, and I have no idea if he'd be good for you. Probably bring you ten kinds of headache. But I think you'd be good for him."
Wylan's face heated. He knew how much Colm loved Jesper, had seen it in every gesture he'd made. It meant something that he thought Wylan was good enough for his son. — Leigh Bardugo

I met this boy here who I knew as a kid and his mum left him with a pedophile for two weeks when he was eight years old and I'm presuming you know everything there is to know about Jonah's father, and that my father is dead, and my mother hasn't been around for years, and God knows Jessa's real story. So what I'm saying here, Sergeant, is that we're just a tad low on the reliable adult quota so you have no right to be all self-righteous about what Chaz did and if you're going to go around not talking to him when his only crime was wanting me to have what he has, then I think you're going to turn out to be a bit of a dud and you know something? I'm just a bit over life's little disappointments right now. Do you understand what I'm saying? — Melina Marchetta

Dad ... you did it? (Shocked but keeping voice down) You did it to the others? You sent out a hundred and twenty cracked engine-heads and let those boys die! How could you do that? How? (Voice rises with anger) Dad ... Dad, you killed twenty-one men! You killed them, you murdered them. (Becomes more furious) Explain it to me. Explain to me how you do it? What did you do? (Pause) Explain it to me goddammit or I will tear you to pieces! I want to know what you did, now what did you do? You had a hundred and twenty cracked engine-heads, now what did you do? Why'd you ship them out in the first place? If you knew they were cracked, then why didn't you tell them? — Arthur Miller

How many of us readers say this quote and mean it. "If I knew what I know now life would be different" ... — Robert Reed

I didn't sleep that night. I cried. I wasn't frightened for myself; I was indignant; it was the wickedness of it that broke me. The war came to an end and I went home. I'd always been keen on mechanics, and if there was nothing doing in aviation, I'd intended to get into an automobile factory. I'd been wounded and had to take it easy for a while. Then they wanted me to go to work. I couldn't do the sort of work they wanted me to do. It seemed futile. I'd had a lot of time to think. I kept on asking myself what life was for. After all it was only by luck that I was alive; I wanted to make something of my life, but I didn't know what. I'd never thought much about God. I began to think about Him now. I couldn't understand why there was evil in the world. I knew I was very ignorant; I didn't know anyone I could turn to and I wanted to learn, so I began to read at haphazard. — W. Somerset Maugham

What?" he asked in a low voice.
"You looked like you spent your last joy bill."
He hissed, "What does that even mean?"
"I don't know. I was just trying it out."
"Well, it doesn't work. It doesn't make sense. And anyway, I've got plenty of joy bills. Loads."
Helen said, "What's happening there on your phone?"
"A very small joy debit."
His older sister's smile shone brightly. "You see, it does work. Now, did you or did you not need to get out of that room?"
Gansey inclined his head in slight acknowledgment. Gansey siblings knew each other well.
"You're so welcome," Helen said. "Let me know if you need me to write a joy check."
"I really don't think it works. — Maggie Stiefvater

When people say "If I only knew then what I know now" makes me wonder why they aren't using that wisdom now. — Rob Liano

Like a comet pulled from orbit,
As it passes a sun.
Like a stream that meets a boulder,
Halfway through the wood.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you,
I have been changed for good

It well may be,
That we will never meet again,
In this lifetime.
So let me say before we part,
So much of me,
Is made of what I learned from you.
You'll be with me,
Like a handprint on my heart.
And now whatever way our stories end,
I know you have re-written mine,
By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring,
By a wind off the sea.
Like a seed dropped by a skybird,
In a distant wood.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you,
Because I knew you,
I have been changed for good. — Stephen Schwartz

Jedediah pulled out his pocketknife, reached over her, and snipped the rose to place in her hair. "Looks better there." In the moonlight, he wasn't sure if she blushed or not. Her eyes seemed all soft and glowing, her lips the color of the pink rose, slightly parted and tempting him. Before he knew what he was doing, his arms had circled her in a swift embrace. Heat filled his face, and his heart pounded so hard he was sure Patience could hear it. Would she let him kiss her? But she was already pulling away, visibly shaken. Her fingers touched her hair, patting it into place, and her eyes, large with surprise, looked into his, then quickly away. "I . . . Jed . . . I think we'd better go back inside and join the party." "I'm - I'm truly sorry, Patience. I don't know . . . I'm not sure what came over me just now. It must be the moonlight and the roses." And you, he said only to himself. — Maggie Brendan

Right now I feel guilty to be alive. Why? Because I'm wasting it. I've been given this life and all I do is mope it away.
What's worse is, I am totally aware of how ridiculous I am. It would be a lot easier if I believed I was the center of the universe, because then I wouldn't know any better NOT to make a big deal out of everything. I know how small my problems are, yet that doesn't stop me from obsessing about them.
I have to stop doing this.
How do other people get happy? I look at people laughing and smiling and enjoying themselves and try to get inside their heads. How do Bridget, Manda, and Sara do it? Or Pepe? Or EVERYONE but me?
Why does everything I see bother me? Why can't I just get over these daily wrongdoings? Why can't I just move on and make the best of what I've got?
I wish I knew. — Megan McCafferty

If it helps, I'm very proud of you. I know it has nothing to do with me, but watching you become the strong, smart woman I always knew you'd be is one of the greatest joys in my life."
"You're trying to make me cry on purpose, aren't you? That's just mean, Raquel."
She laughed. "But you know, no matter what, everything will be different from now on. For all of us."
"You're unemployed, for one. I think we can find you a spot at the diner, if you want. Your French fries can't possibly be worse than Grnlllll's were."
"I think I might surprise you there. — Kiersten White

That's why I didn't want to touch you I knew I'd go crazy if I touched you, and now, it tears me open to ask you to be with me when I know I'm just going to do something to hurt you again!
Yes! Yes you probably are, you idiot! And it's going to be a damn skydive for me, and I'm going to hang on tight and just jump with you because that's what you do to me. — Katy Evans

I'll come back," she promised. "I'll always come back to you."
"I know," he said with cold, calm arrogance. "If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't let you go."
"Believe it. It's true." She took a step back. Then another. "Always."
"Eleanor, if you have any mercy in that dark heart of yours, when you leave right now, you will
walk and not run."
...
crawl and she didn't fly.
She ran. Down the hall she ran as if the hounds of hell nipped at her heels. She ran as if God
himself had ordered her to. She ran as if her life depended on it and in that moment she might
have sworn that it did.
She didn't know why she ran. She didn't know who or what waited for her in the White Room.
She only knew she had to get there as fast as she could and whoever it was, he was worth
running to. — Tiffany Reisz

I'm thinking about her now. I have to convince Scott that I knew her - a little, not a lot. That way, he'll believe me when I tell him that I saw her with another man. If I admit to lying right away, he'll never trust me. So I try to imagine what it would have been like to drop by the gallery, chat with her over a coffee. Does she drink coffee? We would talk about art, perhaps, or yoga, or our husbands. I don't know anything about art, I've never done yoga. I don't have a husband. And she betrayed hers. — Paula Hawkins

I know exactly how you feel," Schmendrick said eagerly. The unicorn looked at him out of dark, endless eyes, and he smiled nervously and looked at his hands. "It's a rare man who is taken for what he truly is," he said. "There is much misjudgment in the world. Now I knew you for a unicorn when I first saw you, and I know that I am your friend. Yet you take me for a clown, or a clod, or a betrayer, and so must I be if you see me so. The magic on you is only magic and will vanish as soon as you are free, but the enchantment of error that you put on me I must wear forever in your eyes. We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream. Still I have read, or heard it sung, that unicorns when time was young, could tell the difference 'twixt the two - the false shining and the true, the lips' laugh and the heart's rue. — Peter S. Beagle

At some point during my research, I came across the term "gender fluid." Reading those words was a revelation. It was like someone tore a layer of gauze off the mirror, and I could see myself clearly for the first time. There was a name for what I was. It was a thing. Gender fluid.

Sitting there in front of my computer--like I am right now--I knew I would never be the same. I could never go back to seeing it the old way; I could never go back to not knowing what I was.

But did that glorious moment of revelation really change anything? I don't know. Sometimes, I don't think so. I may have a name for what I am now--but I'm just as confused and out of place as I was before. And if today is any indication, I'm still playing out that scene in the toy store--trying to pick the thing that will cause the least amount of drama. And not having much success. — Jeff Garvin

I don't know what to say to people. It's become so big. It's become part of the cultural environment. For the first and second Twiglight, I knew exactly what to say to people. If you don't know what the story is by now, then you've probably never been to the cinema before. How about, "Why not go to the cinema for once?" I don't know. — Robert Pattinson

I thought that the administration needed bipartisan support, and I was for our commander-in-chief. Because I felt at that time it was the right thing do. If I knew then what I know now, I would have never voted for the war. — Ken Lucas

How to Tell the Truth and Get in Trouble I am a fourth-generation dairy farmer and cattle rancher. I grew up on a dairy farm in Montana, and I ran a feedlot operation there for twenty years. I know firsthand how cattle are raised and how meat is produced in this country. Today I am president of the International Vegetarian Union. Sure, I used to enjoy my steaks as much as the next guy. But if you knew what I know about what goes into them and what they can do to you, you'd probably be a vegetarian like me. And, believe it or not, as a pure vegetarian now who consumes no animal products at all, I can tell you that these days I enjoy eating more than ever. If you're a meat-eater in America, you have a right to know that you have something in common with most of the cows you've eaten. They've eaten meat, too. — Howard F. Lyman

Oh, who has grasped hold of my soul this night? He found himself unhitching the sword, heard himself saying, "I don't know if you have a weapon, Acquitor," and knew his own disbelief at the absurdity of his own words, the shallowness of his reasoning, "so I will give you mine ... " And he was holding the sheathed sword out to her.
At the threshold of her home.
Fear turned, studied him, but Trull could not look away from her, not even to see what must be realization dawning in his face.
Letherii though she was, Seren Pedac clearly understood, her gaze becoming confused, then clearing. "Just that, I take it. A weapon ... for me to use."
No. "Yes ... Acquitor. A weapon ... "
She accepted it, but the gesture was without meaning now. — Steven Erikson

If this were a fairy tale, this would be the part where the fishboy appears and Diana shoots him through the heart. Because he is a tragic hero, he's our fucking Gatsby, and he lived for his fish and he has to die for his fish. He would never let my fake authority, condoning his abandonment, making up rules about what's okay just to save his life, convince him to give up his family. He would never leave.
He would know that without him, none of us will be as good. Me, without a friend; and the fish, without a brother; and the island, without a story; and Diana, without her something real, we will all be a little bit less than we were before we knew him.
So he wouldn't leave. Not until I could come with him. And I have never been less able to leave than I am now.
But this isn't a fairy tale, and he doesn't appear. We stand here for a long time.
He really left.
Because it was all that we could do. — Hannah Moskowitz

I saw us both as if from a distance off in time: two small, craving, suffering creatures, soon to be gone ... So there he was, a man who had been given everything and did not know it, who had lost it all and now knew it, and who was boasting and grinning only to pretend for a few hours longer that he did not know it ... And there I was, a man losing what I was never given, a man yet rich with love, a man whose knees were weakening against gravity, who needed to go somewhere and lie down. I stood facing the man I had hated for forty years, and I did not hate him. If he had acknowledged then what he finally would not be able to avoid acknowledging, I would have hugged him. If I could have done it, I would have liked to pick him up like a child and carry him to some place of safety and calm. — Wendell Berry

You see, I never knew what I wanted to be
I still don;t know. All I knew was that I was supposed to get married and have babies just like my mother did and my sisters did. I wanted to do that. I met your father and I was his wife, that is who I was. Then I had my children. And then I was a mother. That's who I was. A wife and a mother but I don't know if I was or if I am of any real value. You and the boys are all grown up, so what I am now? — Cecelia Ahern

It would be an exaggeration to say that the war turned people into highbrows, but it did turn them into nihilists for the time being. People who in a normal way would have gone through life with about as much tendency to think for themselves as a suet pudding were turned into Bolshies just by the war. What should I be now if it hadn't been for the war? I don't know, but something different from what I am. If the war didn't happen to kill you it was bound to start you thinking. After that unspeakable idiotic mess you couldn't go on regarding society as something eternal and unquestionable, like a pyramid. You knew it was just a balls-up. — George Orwell