childhood

The Eeyore Educational System sees childhood as a waste of time, a luxury that society cannot afford . . . Put children in school at the earliest age possible; load them down with homework; take away their time, their creativity, their play, their power; then plug them into machines.

You only have to read the lines of scribbly black and everything shines.

He decided then that he would love her forever no matter what came to pass.  It was not so much a matter of deciding as accepting the inevitability of it. It made him feel better, though he felt perturbed, too, worried that this kiss was wrong.  But from his point of view, at fourteen years old, their love was entirely unavoidable.  It had started on the day they’d clung to his glass box and kissed in the sea, and now it must go on forever.  He felt certain of this.

In short, the habits we form from childhood make no small difference, but rather they make all the difference.