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When did pursuing your ambitions cross the line from brave into foolhardy? How did you know when to stop?
His silence was both a necessity and a protection, and had the added benefit of making him appear more mysterious and more interesting than he knew he was.
At the home, he had quickly learned there were three types of boys: The first type might cause the fight (this was JB). The second type wouldn’t join in, but wouldn’t run to get help, either (this was Malcolm). And the third type would actually try to help you out (this was the rarest type, and this was obviously Willem).
it; I had never envisioned having a child, I didn’t feel about them one way or another. And that seemed enough of a reason not to: having a child, I thought, was something you should actively want, crave, even. It was not a venture for the ambivalent or passionless.
It is morals that help us make the laws, but morals do not help us apply them.
the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.”
How can you help someone who won’t be helped while realizing that if you don’t try to help, then you’re not being a friend at all?
