The Sadness of Sophistication

"From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is to open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy." (Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio: Sophistication)