"The Parent"; paraphrased variants:
Children aren't happy without something to ignore, and that's what parents were created for.
Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.
Happy Days (1933)
“Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.”
“I've learned that the worst thing a parent can do is ignore their children”
Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
http://books.google.com/books?id=YnY10fNqqp4C&q=%22There+is+some+irony+in+the+fact+that+children+imagine+that+parents+can+do+what+they+want+and+parents+imagine+that+children+do+When+I+grow+up+parallels+Oh+to+be+a+child+again%22&pg=PA102#v=onepage
The Dialectic of Sex (1970)
The Man in the High Castle (1962)
After his arrest, and getting dragged into court, quoted on The guardian, "Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed jailed for 13 years" http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/14/former-maldives-president-mohamed-nasheed-jailed-for-13-years, March 14, 2015.
Source: The Goblin Quest Series, Goblin Quest (2004), Chapter 7 (p. 128)
1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)
Last interview (1980)
Context: I’m 40, I wanna talk to the people my age. I’m happy if the young people like it, and I’m happy if the old people like it, I’m talkin’ to guys and gals that have been through what we went through, together — the sixties group that has survived. Survived the war, the drugs, the politics, the violence on the street – the whole she-bang – that we’ve survived it and we’re here. And I’m talkin’ to them. And the "Woman" song is to Yoko, but it’s to all women. And, because my role in society – or any artist or poet’s role – is to try to express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel, not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all. And it’s like that’s the job of the artist in society, not to... they’re not some alienated being living on the outskirts of town. It’s fine to live on the outskirts of town, but artists must reflect what we all are. That’s what it’s about – artists, or poets or whatever you wanna call it. And that’s what I’m tryin’ to express on behalf of all the men to all the women, through my own feelings about women – when it dawned on me, "God! It is the other half of the sky" as the late-great Chairman MacDougal said, right? I mean, they are the other half of the sky, and without them there is nothing. And without us there’s nothing. There’s only the two together creating children, creating society. So what’s all this B. S. about, you know, "women are this" and "men are that" – we’re all human, man. We’re all human. And, I am tryin’ to say it to Yoko, but to all women, you know? On behalf of all men, in a way. If that’s taken it too much on meself, I feel that artists are that – they’re reflections of society... Mirrors.
