We'd drifted too far to rely on the old boyhood telepathy anymore.

At some point, you're no longer growing up, you're aging. But no one can pinpoint that moment exactly.

They both looked at me in a way that was fast becoming familiar: two parts bafflement to one part awe at my talent for making a bad situation worse.

The British boy suffers the greatest restraint during the period when the call of nature, the instincts of play and adventure, are most urgent. Naturally, he looks eagerly forward to the time of escape, which he fondly imagines will be when his boyhood is over and he is free of masters.

I write the way you might arrange flowers. Not every try works, but each one launches another. Every constraint, even dullness, frees up a new design.

The phrase ‘Boys will be boys,’ reflects that a male child is expected to be unpredictable and occasionally troublesome.