“Children don't read to find their identity, to free themselves from guilt, to quench the thirst for rebellion or to get rid of alienation. They have no use for psychology… They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff… When a book is boring, they yawn openly. They don't expect their writer to redeem humanity, but leave to adults such childish illusions.”

— Isaac Bashevis Singer

Nobel lecture as quoted in The Observer (17 December 1978) Variant: "They still believe in God, the family, angels, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other obsolete stuff."

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Isaac Bashevis Singer 39

Polish-born Jewish-American author 1902–1991

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“This world wants to be childish in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the "real" world, and to conceal the fact that true childishness is everywhere - that it is that of the adults themselves who come here to act the child in order to foster illusions as to their real childishness.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

The Precession of Simulcra, The Hyperreal and the Imaginary
1980s, Simulacra and Simulation (1981)

“The human heart is the throne of God, the council-chamber of the devil, the dwelling of angels, the vile heath of witches' Sabbaths, the nursery of sweet children, the blood-spattered scene of nameless tragedies.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

Four Minute Essays Vol. 5 (1919), The Human Heart

“It is often said that children do not read. Well, I'd say that if adults don't start reading, it's not fair to accuse little ones of not reading. They must see us with a book in our hands.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Original source: Mucho se dice que los niños no leen. Bueno, yo diría que si los adultos no comienzan a hacerlo, no es justo acusar a los más pequeños de no leer. Ellos deben vernos con un libro entre las manos.
Source: Trujillo, E. (2018). "Promover la lectura es una responsabilidad moral de los escritores: José Baroja". En Perú Informa. http://www.peruinforma.com/entrevista-cultural-al-escritor-chileno-jose-baroja/#:~:text=Hablar%20del%20escritor%20chileno%20Jos%C3%A9,en%20Letras%2C%20menci%C3%B3n%20en%20Literatura.. Consultado el 17 de junio de 2022.

“I don't believe that there are dangerous writers: the danger of certain books is not in the books themselves but in the passions of their readers.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: An Erotic Beyond: Sade

“Don't you understand that we need to be childish in order to understand? Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn't developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don't expect to see.”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“When you're old enough to write a book for children, by then you'll have become a grown up and have lost all your jokeyness. Unless you're an undeveloped adult and still have an enormous amount of childishness in you.”

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter

“To save the witch-children in Nigeria and rescue this nation from witch-believing forces, we need to get all Nigerians to exercise their common sense, reason and critical intelligence when practicing or professing their religion or belief. This is especially important when they are reading, preaching and interpreting messages and doctrines contained in their holy books.”

Leo Igwe (1970) Nigerian human rights activist

Saving Child Witches: A Nigerian Perspective http://enblog.mukto-mona.com/2008/12/14/saving-child-witches-a-nigerian-perspective/ (December 14th, 2008), Mukto-Mona.

“You too need the lecture on the childishness of coupling? Of course it's childish. Family life is, today more than ever, when the ethos is created substantially by the children. It's even worse when there are no children around. Because the childish adult replaces the child. Coupled life and family life bring out everything that's childish in everyone involved. Why do they have to sleep night after night in the same bed? Why must they be on the phone to each other five times a day? Why are they always with each other? The forced deference is certainly childish. The unnatural deference.”

Philip Roth book The Dying Animal

The Dying Animal (2001)

“Is there to be no getting away from this loathsome vegetative physicality?... Utter contempt for the lewd enticements that always lure us back into life's clutches. And when, half-parched, we seek to quench our thirst, the gods laugh us to scorn.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

Beckmann's Diary-notes, 4 July, 1946, p. 156; as cited in 'Portfolios', Alexander Dückers; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 113
Beckmann himself castigated the folly of supposing that sexual gratification leads to fulfillment.
1940s

“It is not size or age or childishness that separates children from adults. It is "responsibility."”

Jules Feiffer (1929) American cartoonist, screenwriter and playwright

The Great Comic Book Heroes http://books.google.com/books?id=zxbuAAAAMAAJ&q=%22It+is+not+size+or+age+or+childishness+that+separates+children+from+adults+It+is+responsibility%22&pg=PA75#v=onepage (1965)

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Isaac Bashevis Singer 39

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