“Eve couldn’t pinpoint when her dislike for lists began, but it must have been around the time she was twelve. It was in the basement of St. Mary’s, where she and the rest of the sixth graders were charged with memorizing the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not this. Thou shalt not that. And thou shalt not the other thing. Then there was the list painted on the sign at the country club pool to remind the children there would be No Running. No Diving. No Splashing. But most important was her mother’s ever-expanding list of what a young lady should not do. Like put her elbows on the table, or speak with her mouth full, or slug her little sister, even when she deserved it.

Yep. In Indiana, a young girl had good reason to suspect that lists were the foot soldiers of tyranny – crafted for the sole purpose of bridling the unbridled. A quashing, squashing, squelching of the human spirit by means of itemization.”

– Amor Towles,
Table for Two, p. 302
“Eve in Hollywood”

 

Charles Dickens was on a tour of America in 1867 when a little girl on a train told him she liked his books, “though I do skip some of the very dull parts, once in a while; not the short dull parts, but the long ones.”
– Nonny Mouse