Jane Smiley

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A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system

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The fundamental condition of childhood is powerlessness

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But he was sixty-two when I was, born, and the novelty of daughters had worn away long before

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Twenty-five, he was. Twenty-five tomorrow. Some years the snow had melted for his birthday, but not this year, and so it had been a long winter full of cows