You vaguely remember As You Like It from High School.

Wasn't that the one with the forest of Arden? You shrug as the pages turn and stop at suddenly at a long monologue, Mrs. Frinckly's second hour English Lit class jumping to memory. Your fingers rest on Act II, scene VII.

Jacques' Soliloquoy

All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, an infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

You blink--serious or sarcastic? Perhaps both; perhaps neither. Shaking your head, you set the book down. Perhaps one of the other books would suit your mood better.