Wisdom is the kingdom you get to be in simply through time, through age.

At that stage when your memory is kaput and you’ve forgotten everything you learned, you’re simply old enough to know better, which is that old line your parents laid on you whenever you did something dumb.

Of course you knew better then, when you lived under their roof and ate their food and wore their clothing and wrecked their cars. You knew that you were by no means old enough, but you also knew that you knew more than your parents did. You knew that if they knew better, they wouldn’t aim blunt and tiring old weapons at you like the “You know better” bomb.

And when you reach that lofty point where you really do know better, your parents are too far away to hear you admit, after the all of it, that they were right.