"Humanity had to inflict terrible injuries on itself before the self, the identical, purpose-directed, masculine character of human beings was created, and something of this process is repeated in every childhood."

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In our imaginations the adults of our childhood remain extreme, essential - we might say radical since they are the roots that fed luxuriant later systems. Those first bohemians, for instance, stay operatic in memory even though were we to meet them today - well, what would we think, we who've elaborated our eccentricities with a patience, a professionalism they never knew?

— Edmund White