a certain bohemian, good-witch sort of charm - Michael Cunningham

There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more.

Perhaps, in the extravagance of youth, we give away our devotions easily and all but arbitrarily, on the mistaken assumption that we’ll always have more to give.

It's hardly ever the destination we've been anticipating, is it? Our hopes may seem unrealized, but we were in all likelihood hoping for the wrong thing. Where did we - the species, that is - pick up that strange and perverse habit?