“I was never allowed to play with guns when I was a child. While various friends were able to scamper around the woods with their Johnny Sevens, I had to make do with an old twig. And convincing an eight-year-old he was dead simply because I'd pointed a piece of larch his way was not quite as easy as you might imagine.”
Source: Clarkson on Cars (1996), p. 52
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Jeremy Clarkson60
English broadcaster, journalist and writer 1960Related quotes
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Not found in Twain's works, this was attributed to him in Reader's Digest (September 1939): no prior attribution known. Mark Twain’s father died when Twain was eleven years old.
Disputed
Variant: When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator
Homage to the square' (1964), Oral history interview with Josef Albers' (1968)
Milton Berle (1908–2002) American comedian and actor
Source: At his 82nd birthday party, as quoted in "Uncle Miltie's Birthday Bash" by the Associated Press, The Journal-News (July 13, 1990), p. 3
Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.
Willie Nelson: Road Rules And Deep Thoughts, NPR Staff, NPR.org, National Public Radio, November 18, 2012, November 18, 2012 http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=165223056,
“We do not quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
This is an anonymous modern quip which is a variant of a statement by G. Stanley Hall, in Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education (1904):
: Men grow old because they stop playing, and not conversely.
Misattributed
Jeru the Damaja (1972) American Hip Hop artist
… We looked at each other, me and my friends, and we were, like, when we’re 86, we want to be like that …. So that’s what started it. <br class="br">" Jeru the Damaja http://www.peta2.com/heroes/jeru-the-damaja/", interview by Peta2, having just released his album Divine Design (2003).
Guy Lafleur (1951) Canadian ice hockey player
Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Guy Lafleur," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198802.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2003-03-16)
“You should not take a fellow eight years old
And make him swear to never kiss the girls.”
"Fra Lippo Lippi", line 224.
Men and Women (1855)