You wanted to look at life for yourself - but you were not allowed; you were punished for your wish. You were ground in the very mill of the conventi… - Henry James

"I always want to know the things one shouldn't do."
"So as to do them?" asked her aunt.
"So as to choose," said Isabel

She knew that this silent, motionless portal opened into the street; if the sidelights had not been filled with green paper, she might have looked out on the little brown stoop and the well-worn brick pavement. But she had no wish to look out, for this would have interfered with her theory that there was a strange, unseen place on the other side — a place which became, to the child’s imagination, according to its different moods, a region of delight or terror.

Whatever life you lead you must put your soul in it — to make any sort of success in it; and from the moment you do that it ceases to be romance, I assure you: it becomes grim reality! And you can't always please yourself; you must sometimes please other people. That, I admit, you're very ready to do; but there's another thing that's still more important — you must often displease others. You must always be ready for that — you must never shrink from it. That doesn't suit you at all — you're too fond of admiration, you like to be thought well of. You think we can escape disagreeable duties by taking romantic views — that's your great illusion, my dear. But we can't. You must be prepared on many occasions in life to please no one at all — not even yourself.