| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 25603 |
| QUOTATION: | Faced with even a temporary delay or absence, children pound and scream and bawl; but as soon as the situation changes, they are bafflingly sunny, and take their gratification with relish, or feel secure again when mother returns. It is said that “children cannot wait,” but just the contrary is true. It is children who can wait, by making dramatic scenes (not otherwise than religious people get through hours of stress by singing hymns). They have a spontaneous mechanism to cushion even minor troubles. Rather it is the adults who have inhibited their spontaneous expression, who cannot wait; we swallow our disappointment and always taste what we have swallowed. For where the occasions of passion occur, where there is actual frustration and misery, and yet anger and grief are not explosively released, then the disposition itself is soured, and such happiness as follows is never full and unclouded. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Paul Goodman (1911–1972), U.S. poet, critic. “On the Intellectual Inhibition of Explosive Grief and Anger,” Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals, Random House (1962). |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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