{"quotes":[{"text":"Maybe I don’t really want to know what’s going on. Maybe I’d rather not know. Maybe I couldn’t bear to know.The Fall was a fall from innocence to knowledge.","author":"Margaret Atwood","tags":["innocence","innocence-lost","knowledge","the-fall"],"id":53581,"author_id":"Margaret+Atwood"},{"text":"Who is that blond child laughing as he runs after his colored marbles? [my marbles]It's meAnd who is the poet writing this poem?That blond child who laughed as he ran after his colored marbles.","author":"Pierre Albert-Birot","tags":["child","childhood","innocence","innocence-lost","marbles","poet"],"id":60577,"author_id":"Pierre+Albert-Birot"},{"text":"We shoot our heroes and enjoy peripeteia as a spectacle akin to sport and perhaps harshly disavowing the past protects us from the disappointment of our outsized hopes--who knows, really, but shifts in taste don't fully account for the phenomenon. At any rate, nearly everything urgent and alive becomes doo-wop down the road, at least in this country's pop culture, and along the way a somewhat self-hating irony lays waste not only to the work but to the desires it once carried. It's like we die into adulthood.","author":"Charles D'Ambrosio","tags":["innocence","innocence-and-age","innocence-lost","pop-culture"],"id":62858,"author_id":"Charles+D%27Ambrosio"},{"text":"Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don't. They just want the fun of eating it all over again. The matron doesn't want to repeat her girlhood - she wants to repeat her honeymoon. I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.","author":"F. Scott Fitzgerald","tags":["amory-blaine","innocence","innocence-lost","monologue"],"id":66693,"author_id":"F.+Scott+Fitzgerald"},{"text":"I wanted to shout down to him, to warn him that he was giving flowers to a monster, but I did not.","author":"Neil Gaiman","tags":["children","cowardice","flowers","innocence-lost","monster","wanting","youth"],"id":123133,"author_id":"Neil+Gaiman"},{"text":"There is no place for innocence on the battlefield.","author":"Jocelyn Murray","tags":["battlefield","innocence","innocence-lost","loss","war"],"id":125783,"author_id":"Jocelyn+Murray"},{"text":"Hello,' Life says, 'Remember me?We started out together hereWhen you were just a bundleOf innocent amazement.Remember how you saw the worldWith nothing but wonder?We were such rowdy playmates then.We painted on the sky with cloudsAnd made magic out of Clothespins and peanut butter.Remember, can you, how I became stained and heavyWith trouble?Not safe now. Lots of no.They dressed me in painful clothesAnd made you wear them, too.You don't recognize me, do youBut I've never abandoned youOr lost my wild, happy desireTo show you Play with youKiss youHide and seek down twisty pathsAnd always discover more.Want to run away with me again?Shall we elope without ever leavingBecause that's possible, you know.I've never been anywhere but hereWaiting for youTo remember.","author":"Jacob Nordby","tags":["amazement","innocence","innocence-lost","innocent","life-poetry","life","poetry","remember","remembering"],"id":187993,"author_id":"Jacob+Nordby"},{"text":"Innocence crafts its own demise.","author":"F.T. McKinstry","tags":["innocence-lost","transformation"],"id":194669,"author_id":"F.T.+McKinstry"},{"text":"Sometimes I return back to the state of mind I had as a child when I believed nothing was impossible.","author":"Jonathan Harnisch","tags":["childhood","childhood-memories","childhood-memory","experience","experience-inspiration","experience","experiences","innocence","innocence-and-age","innocence-and-experience","innocence-lost","innocence-of-soul","life","life-and-living","life-changing","life-experience","life-lesson","life-philosophy","life","memories","memories-dreams-reflections","memories","memories-stay","memories-truth","reflection","reflection-of-the-universe","reflection-of-your-mind","reflection-on-happier-times","reflection-on-life","reflection","reflections","reflections-on-life","sad","sad-but-true","sadness","truth","truth-of-life"],"id":202791,"author_id":"Jonathan+Harnisch"},{"text":"You know what I miss the most about my youth? My gullibility. It's nice believing in everything and everyone. It makes you feel secure, but be strong and depend more on yourself and you'll be ready for disappointments. That's the best advice I can offer you.","author":"V.C. Andrews","tags":["innocence-lost","youth"],"id":214961,"author_id":"V.C.+Andrews"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":22,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}