“There is a time in a boy’s life when the sweetness is pounded out of him; and tenderness, and the ability to show what he feels, is gone.”

— Norah Vincent

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There is a time in a boy’s life when the sweetness is pounded out of him; and tenderness, and the ability to show what …" by Norah Vincent?

Norah Vincent 2

American journalist 1968

Related quotes

“All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.”

Albert Camus (1913–1960) French author and journalist

“Back to him she would never go, but in her lonely life still lived the sweet memory of that happy time when she believed in him and he was all in all to her.”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

“So he ignored the heat now and wondered about what he should do next. If he was going to show what he could do and really did it this time instead of saying he did when he didn't, he remembered that Bobo Kelton hung around the Rec Center a lot, every day, showing off as usual, laughing and sly, as usual. Jason looked at the clock. Ten minutes before three. Hot afternoon. He knew that Bobo would be at the Center. All he had to do was go there and wait. Across the street. A beautiful feeling of sweetness came over him. He lifted his head, let the feeling carry him for a while, like a fresh breeze in his heart. Then he went into the kitchen and took the butcher knife out of the drawer.”

Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop

Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 154

“The tenderness between two people can turn the air tender, the room tender, time itself tender. As I step out of bed and slip on an oversize shirt, everything around me feels like it's the temperature of happiness.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

“Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.”

Abraham Kaplan (1918–1993) American philosopher

Source: "The Conduct of Inquiry", p. 28.
Context: In addition to the social pressures from the scientific community there is also at work a very human trait of individual scientist. I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. It comes as no particular surprise to discover that a scientist formulates problems in a way which requires for their solution just those techniques in which he himself is especially skilled.