Childhood
Joel was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the third of 16 children. Due to the extreme poverty of his family, from the age of 8 to 18, Joel was raised by a neighboring family, the Samuels. Joel attended city public schools, including Atkins High School, and joined the Merchant Marines for one year. In 1946, at age 18, Joel decided to join the United States Army, making a career out of it. He enlisted in New York City.
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Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“The limitless future of childhood shrinks to realistic proportions, to one of limited chances and goals; but, by the same token, the mastery of time and space and the conquest of helplessness afford a hitherto unknown promise of self- realization. This is the human condition of adolescence.”
—Peter Blos (20th century)
“Sadism is not an infectious disease that strikes a person all of a sudden. It has a long prehistory in childhood and always originates in the desperate fantasies of a child who is searching for a way out of a hopeless situation.”
—Alice Miller (20th century)
“She that but little patience knew,
From childhood on, had now so much
A grey gull lost its fear and flew
Down to her cell and there alit,
And there endured her fingers’ touch
And from her fingers ate its bit.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)