“Compromise, eh? Isn’t it sad, growing up? You start off like my Charlie. You start off thinking you can kill all the baddies and save the world. Then you get a little bit older, maybe Little Bee’s age, and you realize that some of the world’s badness is inside you, that maybe you’re a part of it. And then you get a little bit older still, and a bit more comfortable, and you start wondering whether that badness you’ve seen in yourself is really all that bad at all. You start talking about ten percent.”
“Maybe that’s just developing as a person, Sarah.”
I sighed and looked out at Little Bee.
“Well,” I said. “Maybe this is a developing world.”
-from “Little Bee” by Chris Cleave