“Can we not interpret our adult wisdom into the language of boyhood?”

The object of the patrol method is not so much saving the Scoutmaster trouble as to give responsibility to the boy.

We do not want to make Scout training too soft.

The boy is not governed by don’t, but is led by do.

Vigorous Scout games are the best form of physical education because most of them bring in moral education.

Scouting is a man’s job cut down to a boy’s size.

Scouting is a game for boys under the leadership of boys under the direction of a man.

A boy is supremely confident of his own power, and dislikes being treated as a child.

Boys can see adventure in a dirty old duck puddle, and if the Scoutmaster is a boys’ man he can see it, too.

The Good Turn will educate the boy out of the groove of selfishness.

The real way to gain happiness is to give it to others.

Scoutmasters need to enter into boys’ ambitions.

The most important object in Boy Scout training is to educate, not instruct.

Where is there a boy to whom the call of the wild and the open road does not appeal?

The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light.

A boy is not a sitting-down animal.

Scoutmasters need the capacity to enjoy the out-of-doors.

What has happened to the adult human?

Then I’m going?” Kendra asked. The adults in the room exchanged tacit glances before nodding. Then we only have one more problem left to discuss,” Seth said. Everyone turned to him. How do I get invited

Our relationships, relationships between adults, how all those pieces fit together – that’s the most complicated thing we all face.

I always listen, I ask children, I even ask adults in tennis, “What are your children playing?” And most of the time it’s not tennis. It’s pathetic.

When you’re a boy your life can be measured out as a series of uncomfortable conversations reluctantly initiated by adults in an effort to tell you things that you either already know or really don’t want to know.

Will you explain to me why people encourage delusional behaviour in children, and medicate it in adults?

If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox.

To the extent that I had come to understand that despair does not necessarily result in annihilation, that one can go on as usual in spite of it, I had become hardened. Was this what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities? I didn’t like it, but it made it easier to go on.