J. M. Barrie

Wendy: You are both ungallant and deficient!

Peter: How am I deficient?

Wendy: You're just a boy.

• Peter Pan
• The Vanishing American Adult (Ben Sasse)
  • p. 13 (St. Martin's Press, 2017)

Peter Pan is a story about a boy who refuses to grow up. We often misremember it as a fairy tale. It isn't. In the end, the Peter of J. M. Barrie's classic is not at all a commendable hero. He's selfish and shortsighted. "I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things," Peter tells us. "I don't want to be a man."

• The Vanishing American Adult
  • p. 13 (St. Martin's Press, 2017)