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834d408 Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them philosophy antoine-de-saint-exupery the-little-prince children Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
821cd5e Children see magic because they look for it. magic imagination search children Christopher Moore
57ffd8f "Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"... "It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine..." nature spring children classic Frances Hodgson Burnett
8b3f8cc It's never too late to have a happy childhood. youth innocence children Tom Robbins
60d9121 It's the children the world almost breaks who grow up to save it. pith world inspiring hope inspirational breaking save children Frank Warren
0812cc5 I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway... let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves. motherhood kids inspirational-life inspirational-quotes life-and-living living inspiring life inspirational parenting-children fatherhood growing-up parenting children childhood parenthood C. JoyBell C.
a30d230 Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself. life ordinary extraordinary advice lives children William Martin
0aefa5e So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about as numb as a slave in a totalitarian state. marriage children sylvia plath
9269f30 My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent's rooms are empty. Those children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood. By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says 'PRIVATE--GROWNUPS KEEP OUT': a child sprawled on the bed, reading. reading parents child children Anne Fadiman
c71b98d Look at children. Of course they may quarrel, but generally speaking they do not harbor ill feelings as much or as long as adults do. Most adults have the advantage of education over children, but what is the use of an education if they show a big smile while hiding negative feelings deep inside? Children don't usually act in such a manner. If they feel angry with someone, they express it, and then it is finished. They can still play with that person the following day. inspirational children His Holiness the Dahai Lama
015d2d5 "Babies are soft. Anyone looking at them can see the tender, fragile skin and know it for the rose-leaf softness that invites a finger's touch. But when you live with them and love them, you feel the softness going inward, the round-cheeked flesh wobbly as custard, the boneless splay of the tiny hands. Their joints are melted rubber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the passion of loving their existence, your lips sink down and seem never to find bone. Holding them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at any moment flow back into your body. But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel within each child. That thing that says "I am," and forms the core of personality. In the second year, the bone hardens and the child stands upright, skull wide and solid, a helmet protecting the softness within. And "I am" grows, too. Looking at them, you can almost see it, sturdy as heartwood, glowing through the translucent flesh. The bones of the face emerge at six, and the soul within is fixed at seven. The process of encapsulation goes on, to reach its peak in the glossy shell of adolescence, when all softness then is hidden under the nacreous layers of the multiple new personalities that teenagers try on to guard themselves. In the next years, the hardening spreads from the center, as one finds and fixes the facets of the soul, until "I am" is set, delicate and detailed as an insect in amber." -- motherhood parenting children vulnerability Diana Gabaldon
83a3699 Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case. children Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1542bd3 Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers. A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limit of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence. existence barriers boundaries questions children Milan Kundera
cca0430 All children mythologise their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won't be the truth: it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story. myth story truth children Diane Setterfield
c3eaba1 A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world. But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after--oh, that' s love by a different name. motherhood love children Barbara Kingsolver
a468474 It is wrong to bear children out of need, wrong to use a child to alleviate loneliness, wrong to provide purpose in life by reproducing another copy of oneself. It is wrong also to seek immortality by spewing one's germ into the future as though sperm contains your consciousness! immortality future life procreation children Irvin D. Yalom
7aef214 Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.. inspirational children Kahlil Gibran
00c7bc7 Was it the act of giving birth that made you a mother? Did you lose that label when you relinquished your child? If people were measured by their deeds, on the one hand, I had a woman who had chosen to give me up; on the other, I had a woman who'd sat up with me at night when I was sick as a child, who'd cried with me over boyfriends, who'd clapped fiercely at my law school graduation. Which acts made you more of a mother? Both, I realized. Being a parent wasn't just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life. motherhood parenting children Jodi Picoult
7138b29 He glanced back at the wall. How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you know who reflected your own light to you? People were more often--he searched for a simile, found one in his work--torches, blazing away until they whiffed out. How rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought? inspiration mirror-images epiphany children Ray Bradbury
fb5e605 It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible. upbringing mistakes children T.H. White
d77bdeb I can think of few better ways to introduce a child to books than to let her stack them, upend them, rearrange them, and get her fingerprints all over them. child children Anne Fadiman
1606c96 You want to know how I think art should be taught to children? Take them to a museum and say, 'This is art, and you can't do it. teaching children Steve Martin
1a54ef1 Now you know how badly someone wanted you, Charley. Children forget that sometimes. They think of themselves as a burden instead of a wish granted. wanted truth wish children Mitch Albom
ac3713a No one is ever satisfied where he is....Only the children know what they're looking for.... satisfaction only-the-children the-little-prince satisfied children searching Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
68e8754 [E]verywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear. kids caring cuteness neglect pretense hypocrisy parents children Emma Donoghue
f798659 There is no experience like having children.' That's all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children. having-children responsibility family life love truth experience children Mitch Albom
3aa1b5e "There," she said. She rocked him back and forth. "There, you foolish, beautiful boy who wants to change the world. There, there. And who could keep from loving you? Who could keep from loving a boy so brave and true?" love orphans children boys Kate DiCamillo
534fb4f I know what I really want for Christmas. I want my childhood back. Nobody is going to give me that. I might give at least the memory of it to myself if I try. I know it doesn't make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense, anyway? It is about a child, of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of or hearts for something wonderful to happen. A child who is impractical, unrealistic, simpleminded and terribly vulnerable to joy. christmas children Robert Fulghum
877ded0 Thy will be done, my Lord. Because you know the weakness in the heart of your children, and you assign each of them only the burden they can bear. May you understand my love-because it is the only thing I have that is really mine, the only thing that I will be able to take with me into the next life. Please allow it to be courageous and pure; please make it capable of surviving the snares of the world. prayer world heart life love courageous done pure lord weakness will children Paulo Coelho
5186de3 I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time. thoughts feelings demian hermann-hesse children Hermann Hesse
964dcdd Isn't a kid alive who doesn't dream about rewarding her folks, or punishing them. parents parent children Chuck Palahniuk
632bf99 Are parents always more ambitious for their children than they are for themselves? parents children Jeffrey Archer
340892d The Children's Hour Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour. I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet, The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet. From my study I see in the lamplight, Descending the broad hall stair, Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair. A whisper, and then a silence: Yet I know by their merry eyes They are plotting and planning together To take me by surprise. A sudden rush from the stairway, A sudden raid from the hall! By three doors left unguarded They enter my castle wall! They climb up into my turret O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape, they surround me; They seem to be everywhere. They almost devour me with kisses, Their arms about me entwine, Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine! Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti, Because you have scaled the wall, Such an old mustache as I am Is not a match for you all! I have you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart, But put you down into the dungeon In the round-tower of my heart. And there will I keep you forever, Yes, forever and a day, Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in dust away! poetry love parenting children Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
467f283 What is so real as the cry of a child? A rabbit's cry may be wilder But it has no soul. motherhood rabbit cry children Sylvia Plath
e791161 Despair is the result of each earnest attempt to go through life with virtue, justice and understanding, and to fulfill their requirements. Children live on one side of despair, the awakened on the other side. enlightenment children despair Hermann Hesse
f7aac2e It's only adults who read the top layers most of the time. I think children read the internal meanings of everything. meaning intelligence maurice-sendak children Maurice Sendak
8a52847 Though children can accept adults as adults, adults can never accept children as anything but adults too. children William Faulkner
d494069 "We have to actually choose a name," Kane murmured above her head. "We can't keep calling him 'baby.' When he's fifteen he might resent it." -- humor children Christine Feehan
32b6a6f Without the support from religion--remember, we talked about it--no father, using only his own resources, would be able to bring up a child. religion parenting children father Leo Tolstoy
e20bbf0 It is indeed a mistake to confuse children with angels children Douglas Coupland
467959f It is good for children to find themselves facing the elements of a fairy tale - they are well-equipped to deal with these fantasy m-is-for-magic fairytale neil-gaiman children Neil Gaiman
775d145 Woe to the man who offends a small child! small-children mistreatment injury children Fyodor Dostoyevsky
49995dd We are accustomed to repeating the cliche, and to believing, that 'our most precious resource is our children.' But we have plenty of children to go around, God knows, and as with Doritos, we can always make more. The true scarcity we face is practicing adults, of people who know how marginal, how fragile, how finite their lives and their stories and their ambitions really are but who find value in this knowledge, even a sense of strange comfort, because they know their condition is universal, is shared. communality clichés obscurity experience children Michael Chabon
41011d8 When we did art with the kids, the demons would lie down. teaching children Anne Lamott
ea10441 Being sent to bed is a terrible command to all children, because it means the most public possible humiliation in front of adults, the confession that they bear the stigma of childhood, of being small and having a child's need for sleep. sleep child children childhood Stefan Zweig
4d6bceb ...you seemed to be listening to me, not to find out useful information, but to try to catch me in a logical fallacy. This tells us all that you are used to being smarter than your teachers, and that you listen to them in order to catch them making mistakes and prove how smart you are to the other students. This is such a pointless, stupid way of listening to teachers that it is clear you are going to waste months of our time before you finally catch on that the only transaction that matters is a transfer of useful information from adults who possess it to children who do not, and that catching mistakes is a criminal misuse of time. time captain-dimak catching-mistakes misuse-of-time information mistakes teaching children Orson Scott Card
9878ddf "Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don't. I don't. People are much more complicated than that. It's true of everybody.' I said, 'Are you a monster? Like Ursula Monkton?' Lettie threw a pebble into the pond. 'I don't think so,' she said. 'Monsters come in all shapes and sizes, Some of them are things people are scared of. Some of them are things that look like things people used to be scared of a long time ago. Sometimes monsters are things people should be scared of, but they aren't.' I said, 'People should be scared of Ursula Monkton.' 'P'raps. What do you think Ursula Monkton is scared of?' 'Dunno. Why do you think she's scared of anything? She's a grown-up, isn't she? Grown-ups and monsters aren't scared of things.' Oh, monsters are scared," said Lettie. "That's why they're monsters. And as for grown-ups...' She stopped talking, rubbed her freckled nose with a finger. Then, 'I'm going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world." fear fantasy truth adults age inside outside children childhood monsters scared Neil Gaiman
e047006 I wondered how long it took for a baby to become yours, for familiarity to set in. Maybe as long as it took a new car to lose that scent, or a brand-new house to gather dust. Maybe that was the process more commonly described as bonding: the act of learning your child as well as you know yourself. motherhood parenting children Jodi Picoult
ce254d8 "Adults, in their dealing with children, are insane," he [Ed Ricketts] said. "And children know it too. Adults lay down rules they would not think of following, speak truths they do not believe. And yet they expect children to obey the rules, believe the truths, and admire and respect their parents for this nonsense. Children must be very wise and secret to tolerate adults at all. And the greatest nonsense of all that adults expect children to believe is that people learn by experience. No greater lie was ever revered. And its falseness is immediately discerned by children since their parents obviously have not learned anything by experience. Far from learning, adults simply become set in a maze of prejudices and dreams and sets of rules whose origins they do not know and would not dare inspect for fear the whole structure might topple over on them. I think children instinctively know this," Ed said. "Intelligent children learn to conceal their knowledge and keep free of this howling mania." learning education experience children John Steinbeck
f1c4edb Trains and boxcars and the smell of coal and fire are not ugly to children. Ugliness is a concept that we happen on later and become self-conscious about. ugliness children Ray Bradbury
224d5b1 "The little island seemed to float on the dark lake-waters. Trees grew on it, and a little hill rose in the middle of it. It was a mysterious island, lonely and beautiful. All the children stood and gazed at it, loving it and longing to go to it. It looked so secret - almost magic. "Well," said Jack at last. "What do you think? Shall we run away, and live on the secret island?" "Yes!" whispered all the children. "Let's!" secret island running-away mysterious children lonely Enid Blyton
6276acd When you hold a child to your breast to nurse, the curve of the little head echoes exactly the curve of the breast it suckles, as though this new person truly mirrors the flesh from which it sprang. motherhood children Diana Gabaldon
3da2b77 It wasn't a bit of good fighting grown-ups. They could do exactly as they liked. grown-ups children Enid Blyton
05d6d63 Her constant orders for beheading are shocking to those modern critics of children's literature who feel that juvenile fiction should be free of all violence and especially violence with Freudian undertones. Even the Oz books of L. Frank Baum, so singularly free of the horrors to be found in Grimm and Andersen, contain many scenes of decapitation. As far as I know, there have been no empirical studies of how children react to such scenes and what harm if any is done to their psyche. My guess is that the normal child finds it all very amusing and is not damaged in the least, but that books like and should not be allowed to circulate indiscriminately among adults who are undergoing analysis. literature reading death media children Martin Gardner
daa5abb Each month is gay, Each season nice, When eating Chicken soup With rice poetry children Maurice Sendak
0dc20ed "Sebastian it is. You can tell me what a patron saint is later, since I have no knowledge of such things. Sebastian Kane. "Sebastian Kane Cannon. You're going to marry me and use my last name, right?" "Is that supposed to be a proposal?" humor marriage-proposal children Christine Feehan
a8ada7f All children are love children, he said, but only the best ones are ever called that. love moon palace children Paul Auster
c8b4709 I'm going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.' ... We sat there, side by side, on the old wooden bench, not saying anything. I thought about adults. I wondered if that was true: if they were all really children wrapped in adult bodies, like children books hidden in the middle of dull, long books. The kind with no pictures or conversations. growing-up children Neil Gaiman
95d1ab5 Stories are masks of God. That's a story, too, of course. I made it up, in collaborations with Joseph Campbell and Scheherazade, Jesus and the Buddha and the Brother's Grimm. Stories show us how to bear the unbearable, approach the unapproachable, conceive the inconceiveable. Stories provide meaning, texture, layers and layers of truth. Stories can also trivialize. Offered indelicately, taken too literally, stories become reductionist tools, rendering things neat and therefore false. Even as we must revere and cherish the masks we variously create, Campbell reminds us, we must not mistake the masks of God for God. So it seemes to me that one of the most vital things we can teach our children is how to be storytellers. How to tell stories that are rigorously, insistently, beautifully true. And how to believe them. jesus god truth buddha joseph-campbell masks-of-god scheherazade storytellers the-brothers-grimm children stories Melanie Tem
4d712f0 When my friends began to have babies and I came to comprehend the heroic labor it takes to keep one alive, the constant exhausting tending of a being who can do nothing and demands everything, I realized that my mother had done all of these things for me before I remembered. I was fed; I was washed; I was clothed; I was taught to speak and given a thousand other things, over and over again, hourly, daily, for years. She gave me everything before she gave me nothing. family-relationships motherhood family babies mothers mothering children childhood Rebecca Solnit
6ba48b0 This country was filled with violent children orphaned by war. war children Cormac McCarthy
d893a66 Crowns of flowers on our heads, shooting bows and arrows at the sky. Eating candied violets and falling asleep with our heads pillowed on logs. We were children. Children can laugh all day and still cry themselves to sleep at night. nature children Holly Black
0156b74 Und wenn ich mal heirate, dann muss mein Mann zwei Bedingungen erfullen: Er muss Bucher und Kinder lieben, alles andere ist nicht so wichtig. Ich meine, wie er aussieht und so. Obwohl es ja nicht schaden konnte, wenn er schone Zahne hatte. marry wedding children Astrid Lindgren
a0423b7 No, Miss Wright didn't want to meet her kid. To her, that relationship was just as important, just as ideal and impossible as it would be to the child. She'd expect that young man to be perfect, smart, and talented, everything to compensate for all the mistakes that she'd made. The whole wasted, unhappy mess of her life. relationship snuff parenting parents parent children Chuck Palahniuk
b09fede Never tell a child that something it's too hard advice-for-women influence too-hard never tell hard child children Mitch Albom
e37929a "We still counted happiness and health and love and luck and beautiful children as "ordinary blessings." happiness love health children luck Joan Didion
5bada04 The world was beautiful when looked at in this way--without any seeking, so simple, so childlike. world observation simplicity children Hermann Hesse
9997408 It was a surprise, and a delight, to see children devour books. Without ever knowing it, they were receiving an education. reading education children Pat Frank
5138a1f From the time he was young, he dressed the way you told him to dress; he acted the way you told him to act; he said the things you told him to say. He's been listening to somebody else tell him what to do... He hasn't changed. He is still listening to somebody else tell him what to do. The problem is, it isn't you any,ore; it's his peers. youth teenagers-and-parents peer-pressure parenting children Barbara Coloroso
d9c35b2 Go on, glare your eyes at me, and cry and plead, and talk to me about money and what it can buy. But it can't buy back a child once he's dead! kids youth death life glare glares glaring money-monetary plead buy pleading baby kid cry talk crying talking child children young dead eyes young-adults V.C. Andrews
930afe5 It was like when we were little kids and we played games on the ivy-covered hillside in the backyard. We were warriors and wizards and angels and high elves and that was our reality. If someone said, Isn't it cute, look at them playing, we would have smiled back, humoring them, but it wasn't playing. It was transformation. It was our own world. Our own rules. reality fantasy playing-games playing pretending pretend fantastic games fantasies game children childhood Francesca Lia Block
19b9837 When Jordan was a baby he sat on top of me much as a fly rests on a hill of dung. And I nourished him as a hill of dung nourishes a fly, and when he had eaten his fill he left me. Jordan... I should have named him after a stagnant pond and then I could have kept him, but I named him after a river and in the flood-tide he slipped away. rivers mothers children Jeanette Winterson
bc04ec9 I'm only keeping in touch with you for the sake of the children. Way to look after our son, by the way. I let you have him for the weekend and before I know it he's chained underground, awaiting Last Times and stinking of mead. fenris loki children Joanne Harris
a7f14c0 There can be no love without justice. Until we live in a culture that no only respects but also upholds basic civil rights for children, most children will not know love. love justice children bell hooks
fd0661d (Just to give you an idea, Proust's reply was 'To be separated from Mama.') I think that the lowest depth of misery ought to be distinguished from the highest pitch of anguish. In the lower depths come enforced idleness, sexual boredom, and/or impotence. At the highest pitch, the death of a friend or even the fear of the death of a child. sex friends fear death proust-questionnaire impotence mothers idleness proust misery children Christopher Hitchens
1aef9a5 Normally, anything done in the name of 'the kids' strikes me as either slightly sentimental or faintly sinister--that redolence of moral blackmail that adheres to certain charitable appeals and certain kinds of politician. (Not for nothing is baby-kissing the synonym for public insincerity.) moral-blackmail insincerity politicians sentimentality children censorship Christopher Hitchens
14fb749 The soul of a child is the loveliest flower that grows in the garden of God. lovely spirit god love chirstian garden mom parent children flower father soul Elizabeth George
9f41ea4 It was mild monsters like these that made Jack the Ripper go after young women, she decided: who could tolerate yielding the world to someone who behaved as if she had given birth to the very world herself? humor center-of-the-universe jack-the-ripper the-world children Gregory Maguire
f486b09 One of the questions asked by al-Balkhi, and often repeated to this day, is this: Why do the children of Israel continue to suffer? My grandmother Dodo thought it was because the were jealous. The seder for Passover (which is a shame-faced simulacrum of a Hellenic question-and-answer session, even including the wine) tells the children that it's one of those things that happens to every Jewish generation. After the or or Holocaust, many rabbis tried to tell the survivors that the immolation had been a punishment for 'exile,' or for insufficient attention to the Covenant. This explanation was something of a flop with those whose parents or children had been the raw material for the 'proof,' so for a time the professional interpreters of god's will went decently quiet. This interval of ambivalence lasted until the war of 1967, when it was announced that the divine purpose could be discerned after all. How wrong, how foolish, to have announced its discovery prematurely! The exile and the Shoah could now both be understood, as part of a heavenly if somewhat roundabout scheme to recover the Western Wall in Jerusalem and other pieces of biblically mandated real estate. I regard it as a matter of self-respect to spit in public on rationalizations of this kind. (They are almost as repellent, in their combination of arrogance, masochism, and affected false modesty, as Edith Stein's 'offer' of her life to expiate the regrettable unbelief in Jesus of her former fellow Jews.) The sage Jews are those who have put religion behind them and become in so many societies the leaven of the secular and the atheist. jealousy war suffering christianity jesus religion bible grandmothers biblical-covenant divine-retribution edith-stein false-modesty hellenism hiwi-al-balkhi masochism passover passover-seder rabbis rationalisation six-day-war theodicy western-wall will-of-god exile gentiles judaism martyrdom arrogance holocaust punishment atheism self-respect children jerusalem secularism wine survivors Christopher Hitchens
abc0cff What makes people good communicators is, in essence, an ability not to be fazed by the more problematic or offbeat aspects of their own characters. They can contemplate their anger, their sexuality, and their unpopular, awkward, or unfashionable opinions without losing confidence or collapsing into self-disgust. They can speak clearly because they have managed to develop a priceless sense of their own acceptability. They like themselves well enough to believe that they are worthy of, and can win, the goodwill of others if only they have the wherewithal to present themselves with the right degree of patience and imagination. As children, these good communicators must have been blessed with caregivers who knew how to love their charges without demanding that every last thing about them be agreeable and perfect. Such parents would have been able to live with the idea that their offspring might sometimes--for a while, at least--be odd, violent, angry, mean, peculiar, or sad, and yet still deserve a place within the circle of familial love. self-knowledge family communicators self-acceptance communication parenting parents children Alain de Botton
ded159a "We were no longer, technically, children although in many ways I am quite sure that we were. Childish has become a term of contempt. "Don't be childish, darling." "I hope to Christ I am. Don't be childish yourself." It is possible to be grateful that no one that you would willingly associate with you say, "Be mature. Be well-balanced, be well-adjusted." Africa, being as old as it is, makes all people except the professional invaders and spoilers into children. No one says to anyone in Africa, "Why don't you grow up?" . . . Men know that they are children in relation to the country and, as in armies, seniority and senility ride close together. But to have the heart of a child is not a disgrace. It is an honor. A man must comport himself as a man. . . . But it is never a reproach that he has kept a child's heart, a child's honesty and a child's freshness and nobility." childish children Ernest Hemingway
af20037 A bad thing happened to you kids, Dad said. But it could have been worse. So much worse, Mom said. But because of you kids, Dad said, it wasn't. You did so good, Mom said. Did beautiful, Dad said. children trauma George Saunders
e5d97e9 Look at you, standing there in your iron- gray dress, feeling pious and self- righteous while you starve small children! kids self-righteous standing dresses gray pious righteous baby kid child children V.C. Andrews
9873ab4 She's happier than Nicola. That's probably true. Alcoholics can stop drinking but what is there for the children of alcoholics? Is it always too late? Probably. She doesn't know. children-of-alcoholics children Roddy Doyle
59565ca There was a pleasant party of barge people round the fire. You might not have thought it pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends or acquaintances, and they liked the same sort of things, and talked the same sort of talk. This is the real secret of pleasant society. life society england children insight E. Nesbit
179b9d5 I thought about adults. I wondered if that was true: if they were all really children wrapped in adult bodies... inner-child children Neil Gaiman
747cdf8 "Dad was on the porch, pacing back and forth in that uneven stride he had on account of having a gimp leg. When he saw, he let out a yelp of delight and started hobbling down the steps towards us. Mom came running out of the house. She sank down on her knees, clasped her hands in front of her, and started praying up to the heavens, thanking the Lord for delivering her children from the flood. It was she who had saved us, she declared, by staying up all night praying. "You get down on your knees and thank your guardian angel," she said. "And thank me, too." Helen and Buster got down and started praying with Mom, but I just stood there looking at them. The way I saw it. I was the one who'd saved us all, not Mom and not some guardian angel. No one was up in that cottonwood tree except the three of us. Dad came alongside me and put his arms around my shoulders. "There weren't no guardian angel, Dad," I said. I started explaining how I'd gotten us to the cottonwood tree in time, figuring out how to switch places when our arms got tired and keeping Buster and Helen awake through the long night by quizzing them. Dad squeezed my shoulder. "Well, darling," he said, "maybe the angel was you." flash-flood religion love natural-disaster guardian-angel parents mother children Jeannette Walls
a702efb We haven't remained idle, twiddling our thumbs while you were off having a good time. Through books Cathy and I have lived a zillion lives . . . our vicarious way to feel alive. live reading books book-reading lived vicarious abandonement good-time thumbs alive idle away read experience lives children V.C. Andrews
e81e7b2 l shy ymknh tGyyr nmT lHy@ 'kthr mn njb Tfl life children novel Nicholas Sparks
81c531c Instruction is good for a child; but example is worth more. youth lead-by-example raising-children example role-models parenting teaching children Alexandre Dumas
8949a84 "You're bigger than I remember," she said stupidly. "You too," he said. "I also remember that you were beautiful." "Memory does play tricks on us." "No. Your face is the same, but I don't remember what beautiful means anymore. Come on. Let's go out into the lake." meaning your-face ender valentine children forget memory Orson Scott Card
5c81ab3 How silly men were! Their part in procreation was so unimportant; it was the woman who carried the child through long months of uneasiness and bore it with pain, and yet a man because of his momentary connection made such preposterous claims. Why should that make any difference to him in his feelings towards the child? men women procreation conception children W. Somerset Maugham
f9a8e9a He still had the power to stagger her at timessimply the fact that he was breathing that all his organs were in their proper places that blood flowed quietly and effectively through his small sturdy limbs. He was her flesh and blood her mother had told her in the hospital the day Akash was born. motherhood children Jhumpa Lahiri
037add4 Children can be told anything--anything. I've always been struck by seeing how little grown-up people understand children, how little parents even understand their own children. Nothing should be concealed from children on the pretext that they are little and that it is too early for them to understand. What a miserable and unfortunate idea! And how readily the children detect that their fathers consider them too little to understand anything, though they understand everything. Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case. child-rearing children Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3db89af Mandy smiled cheerfully at an overweight kid in a gold sweater and pink skirt who was chasing her little brother around along the boardwalk. When she was that age, on sunny days she'd be out on the boardwalk with Jud and Wendy, buying rainbow sorbet from the ice cream shop and placing paper boats into the harbour. She felt like a ghost, drifting past the shell of her own childhood. kids rainbow-sorbet ice-cream pollution sea children childhood nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
bcfb737 On the stairs he was crying so much he hardly saw where he was going - not a mad boo-hoo but wailing sheets of tears, shaken into funny groans by the bump of each step as he hurried down. children Alan Hollinghurst
a6c163c More than Captain America your kids need Amelia Earhart - more than Ant Man, they need Abraham Lincoln - more than Green Arrow they need Gandhi - more than Iron Man they need Isaac Newton. fairy-tales parenting-children child-psychology parenting-101 parenting-advice parenting-teenagers parents-advice parents-and-responsibility parents-and-teenagers parents-quotes parents-responsibility raising-kids parenting fiction-fantasy parents parents-and-children children parenthood Abhijit Naskar
37f8daa Their faith in him is at once touching and alarming -- their trust that they are safe simply because he's with them, as if an adult presence warded of all possible threat, emanated an unbreachable forcefield. danger safety children Paul Murray
1eb51c8 New Rule: Don't name your kid after a ballpark. Cubs fans Paul and Teri Fields have named their newborn son Wrigley. Wrigley Fields. A child is supposed to be an independent individual, not a means of touting your own personal hobbies. At least that's what I've always taught my kids, Panama Red and Jacuzzi. names humor bad-decisions baseball chicago chicago-cubs naming sports-fans parenting parents children sports Bill Maher
c03a790 Then turn your eyes back on me, and tell me that Cathy and I are still children to be treated with condescension, and are incapable of understanding adult subjects. understanding kids told treated condescension incapable subjects adults understand kid child children teens eyes young-adults V.C. Andrews
5d1b274 "For my sake," he said firmly, addressing the air in front of him as though it were a tribunal, "I dinna want ye to bear another child. I wouldna risk your loss, Sassenach," he said, his voice suddenly husky. "Not for a dozen bairns. I've daughters and sons, nieces and nephews, grandchildren--weans enough." He looked at me directly then, and spoke softly. "But I've no life but you, Claire." He swallowed audibly, and went on, eyes fixed on mine. "I did think, though . . . if ye do want another child . . . perhaps I could still give ye one." love claire-fraser jamie-fraser babies orphan soulmates pregnancy children Diana Gabaldon
abc4d93 Because we are human we have a long childhood, and one of the jobs of that childhood is to sculpt our brains. We have years--about twelve of them--to draw outlines of the shape we want our sculpted brain to take. Some of the parts must be sculpted at critical times. One cannot, after all, carve out toes unless he knows where the foot will go. We need tools to do some of the fine work. The tools are our childhood experiences. And I'm convinced that one of those experiences must be children's books. And they must be experienced within the early years of our long childhood. experiences literature reading life children-s-lit life-experiences children-s-literature development brains children childhood children-s-books E.L. Konigsburg
346ed12 How children adapt to available surfaces, using curbstones, stoops and manhole covers. How they take the pockmarked world and turn a delicate inversion, making something brainy and rule-bound and smooth, and then spend the rest of their lives trying to repeat the process. games children Don DeLillo
86283a8 But the lucidity of her old age allowed her to see, and she said so many times, that the cries of children in their mothers' wombs are not announcements of ventriloquism or a faculty for prophecy but an unmistakable sign of an incapacity for love. love unable-to-love birth children Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
e686845 "When Molly O'Toole was looking at the colored pictures in Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's big dictionary and just happened to be eating a candy cane at the same time and drooled candy cane juice on the colored pictures of gems and then forgot and shut the book so the pages all stuck together, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle didn't say, "Such a careless little girl can never ever look at the colored pictures in my dictionary again." Nor did she say, "You must never look at books when you are eating." She said, "Let's see, I think we can steam those pages apart, and then we can wipe the stickiness off with a little soap and water, like this-now see, it's just as good as new. There's nothing as cozy as a piece of candy and a book." candy children Betty MacDonald
de3efa9 "What are you doing?" Alecto asked in surprise, stepping back. Laughing brightly, she dragged him towards the greenhouse, the shattered glass reflecting rainbows as brilliant as a million Kodak flashcubes, glittering as they were cascaded through the breeze. "See, don't be afraid of the glass, it can't hurt us," Mandy laughed, spectacularly eccentric, her eyes reflecting the fallen glass. "I wasn't afraid of the glass, but this isn't a very secluded place that you just decided to vandalize," Alecto cautioned, smiling despite his words. Before Mandy could reply, she heard loud whispering in the air, behind the trees... it sounded like a group of people, all whispering in unison... "Somebody's out there," she exclaimed nervously. "Yeah, you're right," Alecto replied. Suddenly a sharp new vibrancy seemed to fill his eyes and he smiled coldly, taking the tree branch from Mandy and rapidly smashing in all of Mrs. Matthias' stained glass house windows with it. Blue, green, yellow, red, turquoise, purple and an array of other colors showered through the sky noisily, sounding like wind chimes and crashing waves. "They'll go away," he told her, glancing up at the sky. "...Alecto, do you like me?" Mandy questioned, holding out her arms like a lopsided scarecrow as the glass fell through her dark red hair. "Yeah, sure," he answered. "Will you be my friend, then? A real friend, not just another person who feels sorry for me?" Mandy asked. "...Alright, Mandy Valems," Alecto agreed." depression fun friends funny friendship love colored flashcube greenhouse scarecrow stained-glass vibrancy wind-chimes kodak cape-breton nova-scotia glitter cut air whispering yellow waves best-friends sorry green sharp vandalism blue canada glass growing-up red shatter trees noir friend house smile children crashing noise nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
e8eef61 Children forget that sometimes. They think of themselves as a burden instead of a wish granted. children Mitch Albom
bda738e We leave this life the same way that we enter it, totally alone, bereft. marriage science love parallel-universes thriller children Blake Crouch
5058335 There was a danger in asking too much of a child, but the danger of asking too little was almost equal. risk youth teach demand equal kid little much require show child danger children young Robin Hobb
65cd5c6 I know now it is children who accept life; grown people cover it up and pretend it is different with drinks. drinking life children Rumer Godden
6a0b7dc Da imash dete e kato da si napravish tatuirovka na litseto. Naistina triabva da si sigurna, che tochno tova iskash, predi da mu se posvetish. kids responsibility family commitment baby children Elizabeth Gilbert
e07fe6a it's definitely best for little children to have a regular life, especially if they can regulate it themselves. children Astrid Lindgren
e32ccb0 However, what I do believe to genuinely sacred - and, indeed, more useful to the earth as a whole - is trying to ensure that there are as few unbalanced, destructive people as possible. By whatever rationale you use, ending a pregnancy 12 weeks into gestation is incalculably more moral than bringing an unwanted child into this world. It's those unhappy, unwanted children, who then grew into angry adults, who have caused the great majority of humankind's miseries. They are the ones who make states feel feral; streets dangerous; relationships violent. woman decisions children Caitlin Moran
7016dc8 Parents drinking is the reason you came into the world, and if we didn't keep doing it then, by God, it would be the reason you went back out of it. drinking conception parenting children Caitlin Moran
2da88dc Children are excellent judges of character, you know judging-others judging-people children Mohsin Hamid
57b9801 How do we teach a child--our own, or those in a classroom--to have compassion: to allow people to be different; to understand that like is not equal; to experiment; to laugh; to love; to accept the fact that the most important questions a human being can ask do not have--or need--answers. compassion life growing-up difference teaching children Madeleine L'Engle
f6301b5 Every woman who chooses - joyfully, thoughtfully, calmly, of their own free will and desire - not to have a child does womankind a massive favour in the long term. We need more women who are allowed to prove their worth as people; rather than being assessed merely for their potential to create new people. After all, half those new people we go on to create are also women - presumably themselves to be judged, in their futures, for not making new people. And so it will go on and on... woman decision children sexism Caitlin Moran
def9afe Each day in this country, twenty-three hundred children are reported missing. children Dennis Lehane
60f72c0 I thought of the parable of the prodigal son. We had made merry for the beloved child's return too - but what happens when the beloved child doesn't say she's sorry? The parable doesn't talk about that. Jesus figures of you're sorry. Jesus, I thought, you blew it. Not everybody is sorry. forgiveness children Caroline B. Cooney
232f3a7 She was still glad she looked like Scully. He wasn't pretty either, but pretty people weren't the kind you need. Pretty people saw themselves in the mirror and were either too happy or too sad. People like Billie just shrugged and didn't care. She didn't want to turn into anyone pretty. Anyway, she had scars now, you only had to look. attitude vainity perspective pretty children Tim Winton
0d09af9 Why doesn't every mother believer her child can change the world? The child can. This is the joke. Here we are still looking for a saviour and hundreds are being born every second. Look at it, this tiny capsule of new life, indifferent to your prejudices, your miseries, unmindful of the world already made. Make it again? They could if we let them, but we make sure they grow up just like us, fearful like us. Don't let them know the potential that they are. fear potential children Jeanette Winterson
ca777ae Then turn your eyes back on me, and tell me that Cathy and I are still children to be treated with condescension, and are incapable of understanding adult subjects. We haven't remained idle, twiddling our thumbs while you were off having a good time. understanding kids youth philosophy wisdom abandonement adult-subjects condescension good-time thumbs incapable subjects away idleness understand experience children condescending eyes V.C. Andrews
fcdab53 "Pamela produced placid babies. "They don't tend to turn feral until they're two," she said." humor children Kate Atkinson
e914722 Then how about this: Remember Austin Gollaher, because what we do matters, even if we don't end up in history books. childrens-books children Deborah Hopkinson
5488822 So about an hour later we are in the taxi shooting along empty country roads towards town. The April light is clear as an alarm. As we pass them it gives a sudden sense of every object existing in space on its own shadow. I wish I could carry this clarity with me into the hospital where distinctions tend to flatten and coalesce. I wish I had been nicer to him before he got crazy. These are my two wishes. illness poem poetry dementia clarity parents children Anne Carson
fc1f077 There had been a quarrel, she had been hurt, had wept. Now it was over; now she sat still and waited. Life would go on. As with children. As with animals. If only you did not talk, did not make simple things complicated, did not turn your soul inside out. silence life klein-and-wagner quarrel children Hermann Hesse
48d5fdb though they know in their adult hearts, even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed for his appalling behavior, that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids, their wives are Dopey Dopeheads and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants. youth fun youthful silly youthfulness children Billy Collins
d74e103 Nicht die Kinder bloss, speist man mit Marchen ab. fairytales children Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
7881cdf It seems to be typical of life in America, where opportunities, real and fancied, are thicker than anywhere else on the globe, that the second generation has no time to talk to the first. opportunities relationships family generations parents children James Baldwin
5f05639 La commedia e una tragedia che capita agli altri. carter figlie sagge wise children Angela Carter
60e7102 [...] certo, una madre e sempre una madre, perche e un fatto biologico, mentre un padre e una festa mobile. figlie sagge wise children Angela Carter
8294dc8 "Suppose you and Pa were gone, and we were lost. Suppose we were inside of What would happen then? I wonder what my sister, who understand books better than life, would say if she were confronted with a question like this one. She's so good at explaining books and their meanings, beyond the obvious. Maybe she'd say that all those books and stories devoted to adult-less children - books like that short story by Garcia Marquez, "Light is Like Water," and of course - are nothing but desperate attempts by adults to come to terms with childhood. That although they may seem to be stories about children's worlds - worlds without adults - they are in fact stories about children's worlds - worlds without adults - they are in fact stores about an adult's world when there are children in it, about the way that children's imaginations destabilize our adult sense of reality and force us to question the very grounds of that reality. The more time one spends surrounded by children, disconnected by other adults, the more their imaginations leak through the cracks of our own fragile structures." reality imagination children Valeria Luiselli
d5ea915 [W]e have reason to ask what artists are working specially for children, and whether they are running with the popular tide or saying something special.... In America, we had the 'parlor gift book' makers, but we also had Howard Pyle. classics children children-s-books Louise Seaman Bechtel
db1de94 School in itself is a microcosm of society. These kids bring a lot of baggage with them, and as teachers with 30 plus kids in your classroom you have to take the time to get to know them, and not just see them as people you have to teach. And if they want to learn they will learn, and if they don't want too then too bad. But you have to see them as your surrogate children. Charles Chuck Mackey, former vice principal and coach of R. M. Bailey Pacers... relationships learning education classroom homeroom-teachers microcosm-of-society school-principals surrogate-children schools teachers children students Drexel Deal
368a868 Of course he won my heart. Many children did. I often thought that I should have liked children of my own if it were not for the undignified manner of getting them. children Jean Plaidy
cf1a107 "Tony and Peg have two kids, Terry-Lynn and Harvey, both of whom are enrolled in so many extracurricular and afterschool clubs that they hardly ever see their parents. If Terry-Lynn is in Girl Guides, she doesn't have to see Peg inviting the Purolator man in for "a cup of coffee". If Harvey is in the anime drawing club, he doesn't have to see Peg kissing Mr. Cooper from across the street, even if all the other neighbours secretly know what's going on. Tony has no idea, all he knows is that Peg isn't the same Peg he married back in 2003. All he knows is that she's changed a great deal, and not for the better, like a beautiful butterfly regressing back into a devouring, ugly caterpillar in the span of only a couple of months." kids marriage kiss change afterschool butterfly cheater extracurricular-activities girl-scouts homewrecker neighbours purolator caterpillar anime drawing street coffee parents beautiful children ugly Rebecca McNutt
910b4f9 "Tiddlywinks, tiddlywinks, I want to play tiddlywinks," chanted Ramona, shaking her head back and forth." humor playtime ramona children childhood Beverly Cleary
4da3f95 There is no such thing as reproduction, only acts of production. writing parenting children Andrew Solomon
35b006d Children's as good as 'rithmetic to set you findin' out things. motherhood learning parenting knowledge children childhood parenthood Frances Hodgson Burnett
771e094 Arthur said, You must know that you don't love children for being good or bad. I know you know that. Why do you love them? Because you do, said Arthur. Because they don't know what's coming and maybe you do. life children Jane Smiley
eded18d I made him walk on a lead and he jumped for joy, the way creatures do, and children do and adults don't do, and spend their lives wondering where the leap went. dogs joy jumping-for-joy growing-up children Jeanette Winterson
eb2d33a Sorridi in pubblico, piangi in pubblico, vivi in pubblico, crepa in pubblico. C'era, sui loro visi, un'emozione schietta, atipica per gli attori. Stasera erano al telegiornale. E' la cosa peggiore veder soffrire i propri figli. carter figlie sagge wise children Angela Carter
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