That's the worst of growing up, and I'm beginning to realize it. The things you wanted so much when you were a child don't seem half so wonderful to you when you get them.
Interpretation
As we mature, the things we dreamed of as children may lose their allure and not fulfill our expectations.
This quote reflects the disillusionment that often accompanies adulthood, where the desires and dreams of childhood may not translate into the happiness or fulfillment one anticipated. It suggests that growing up brings a complex understanding of reality, often leaving us to confront the bittersweet nature of our aspirations versus their actual outcomes.
In practice
During a graduation speech to remind students about the realities of adulthood.
A broken heart in real life isn't half as dreadful as it is in books. It's a good deal like a bad tooth, though you won't think THAT a very romantic simile. It takes spells of aching and gives you a sleepless night now and then, but between times it lets you enjoy life and dreams and echoes and peanut candy as if there were nothing the matter with it.
A house isn't a home without the ineffable contentment of a cat with its tail folded about its feet. A cat gives mystery, charm, suggestion.
Gilbert darling, don't let's ever be afraid of things. It's such dreadful slavery. Let's be daring and adventurous and expectant. Let's dance to meet life and all it can bring to us, even if it brings scads of trouble and typhoid and twins!" (Anne to Gilbert)
Youth is not a vanished thing but something that dwells forever in the heart.
I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.
She had dreamed some brilliant dreams during the past winter and now they lay in the dust around her. In her present mood of self-disgust, she could not immediately begin dreaming again. And she discovered that, while solitude with dreams is glorious, solitude without them has few charms.
I’ve been things and I've seen places.
You know what I'm going to have on my gravestone? 'She did it the hard way.'
I join the March for Life in Washington with my prayers. May God help us respect all life, especially the most vulnerable.
Dying is not a sin. Not living is.
Being someone who had had a very difficult childhood, a very difficult adolescence - it had to do with not quite poverty, but close. It had to do with being brought up in a family where no one spoke English, no one could read or write English. It had to do with death and disease and lots of other things. I was a little prone to depression.
I have two main reasons for retiring. The first is I can no longer play at a level I was accustomed to in the past. That has been very, very frustrating to me throughout this past year. The second one is realizing my health, along with my family, is the most important thing in the world.
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