The narrator analyzes that the maturing, passing away boy within him, "had issued me a challenge as he passed the baton to the man in me: He had challenged me to have the courage to become a gentle, harmless man.

Pat Conroy
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved." Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love." Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says: "I need you because I love you. - Erich Fromm
  2. That was when it was all made painfully clear to me. When you are a child, there is joy. There is laughter. And most of all, there is trust. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>Trust in your fellows. When you are an adult..then comes suspicion, hatred, and fear.... - Peter David
  3. We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix... - Unknown
  4. I am convinced that most people do not grow up... We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally... - Maya Angelou
  5. I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us. - Hermann Hesse
More Quotes By Pat Conroy
  1. I wanted to become the seeker, the aroused and passionate explorer, and it was better to go at it knowing nothing at all, always choosing the unmarked bottle, always choosing your own unproven method, armed with nothing but faith and a belief in astonishment.
  2. I’ve never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.
  3. It did not look like the work of God, but it might have represented the handicraft of a God with a joyous sense of humor, a dancing God who loved mischief as much as prayer, and playfulness as much as mischief.
  4. The tide was a poem that only time could create, and I watched it stream and brim and makes its steady dash homeward, to the ocean.
  5. Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration.
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