Enough Listening: Or, Selections from The Little Prince

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again. . . . So I have had, in the course of my life, lots of encounters with lots of serious people. I have spent lots of time with grown-ups. I have seen them at close range . . . which hasn't much improved my opinion of them.

----------

"One must command from each what each can perform," the king went on. "Authority is based first of all upon reason. If you command your subjects to jump in the ocean, there will be a revolution. I am entitled to command obedience because my orders are reasonable."
"Then my sunset?" insisted the little prince, who never let go of a question once he had asked it.
"You shall have your sunset. I shall command it. But I shall wait, according to my science of government, until conditions are favorable."
"And when will that be?" inquired the little prince.
"Well, well!" replied the kind, first consulting a large calendar. "Well, well! That will be around . . . around . . . that will be tonight around seven-forty! And you'll see how well I am obeyed."

----------

But the vain man did not hear him. Vain men never hear anything but praise.
"Do you really admire me a great deal?" he asked the little prince.
"What do you mean--admire?"
"To admire means to acknowledge that I am the handsomest, the best-dressed, the richest, and the most intelligent man on the planet."
"But you're the only man on your planet!"
"Do me this favor. Admire me all the same."
"I admire you," said the little prince, with a little shrug of his shoulders, "but what is there about my admiration that interests you so much?" And the little prince went on his way.

----------

"Why are you drinking?" the little prince asked.
"To forget," replied the drunkard.
"To forget what?" inquired the little prince, who was already feeling sorry for him.
"To forget that I'm ashamed," confessed the drunkard, hanging his head.
"What are you ashamed of?" inquired the little prince, who wanted to help.
"Of drinking!"

----------

"When you find a diamond that belongs to nobody in particular, then it's yours. When you find an island that belongs to nobody in particular, it's yours. When you're the first person to have an idea, you patent it and it's yours. Now I own the stars, since no one before me ever thought of owning them."

----------

Now that man, the little prince said to himself as he continued on his journey, that man would be despised by all the others, by the king, by the very vain man, by the drunkard, by the businessman. Yet he's the only one who doesn't strike me as ridiculous. Perhaps it's because he's thinking of something besides himself.