"The faces in the band room this morning are open and bright. The eyes are a row of shiny buttons, unclouded by the opacities of irony. Attentive, joyful groups of children like this often provoke adults to say goofy things like, 'The children are our future!' Of course this statement completely ignores the fact that everyone who has not stopped absorbing oxygen is our future. Children are fascinating, and surprising, and at their best heavenly sprites, but before you go in too deeply for the idea that the world would be a better place if we were all more childlike, try sticking three kids in one room with two toys. . . .The world is like it is because, on the whole, we tend to act like children."
Population 485 by Michael Perry