“Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying.”

— Fran Lebowitz , book Social Studies

"Parental Guidance".
Social Studies (1981)

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Fran Lebowitz 34

author and public speaker from the United States 1950

Stobaeus Ancient Greek anthologist

iii. 3. 52
Quotes by and about Diogenes

“What is a neglected child? He is a child not planned for, not wanted. Neglect begins, therefore, before he is born.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Children for Adoption (1964). Ch. 3

“Christ did not ask or want to be what he was not.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“Christ,” p. 106
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Is It Possible to Write a Poem”

“Ask a great money-maker what he wants to do with his money, — he never knows. He doesn't make it to do anything with it. He gets it only that he may get it. "What will you make of what you have got?"”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

you ask. "Well, I'll get more," he says. Just as at cricket, you get more runs. There's no use in the runs, but to get more of them than other people is the game. So all that great foul city of London there, — rattling, growling, smoking, stinking, — a ghastly heap of fermenting brickwork, pouring out poison at every pore, — you fancy it is a city of work? Not a street of it! It is a great city of play; very nasty play and very hard play, but still play.

The Crown of Wild Olive, lecture I: Work, sections 23-24 (1866)

“He who buys what he needs not, sells what he needs.”

Mateo Alemán book Guzmán de Alfarache

Pt. II, Lib. III, Ch. III.
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604)

“If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a little girl she will say, "Why, of course, I did, child," and if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, "What a foolish question to ask; certainly he did."”

J. M. Barrie book The Little White Bird

Then if you ask your grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she also says, "Why, of course, I did, child," but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his having a goat. Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name and calls you Mildred, which is your mother's name. Still, she could hardly forget such an important thing as the goat. Therefore there was no goat when your grandmother was a little girl. This shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest.
Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really always the same age, so that does not matter in the least.
Source: The Little White Bird (1902), Ch. 14