“When you argue with a child," she said warmly, "you give a good argument and the child says yah, yah! You understand him and he doesn't listen, so the child wins.”
Mordeen to Victor in Act One: The Circus
Burning Bright (1950)
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John Steinbeck 366
American writer 1902–1968Related quotes

Reported in Eva Shaw, For the Love of Children (1998), p. 133.

Source: NOS4A2

“Adulthood isn’t an award they’ll give you for being a good child.”
Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)
Context: Adulthood isn’t an award they’ll give you for being a good child. You can waste … years, trying to get someone to give that sort of respect to you, as though it were some sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just … take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, "I’m sorry you feel like that", and walk away.

““Tcha! Tcha!” cried Poirot irritably. “You argue like a child.””
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

Notes of August 1842, published in Charles Kingsley : His Letters and Memories of His Life (1883) edited by Frances Eliza Grenfell Kingsley, p. 65.

“You gotta give a child something to believe in”
The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2013
Context: As my mother once said when I was young, "You gotta give a child something to believe in," even if you're, let's say, the most aculturated individual on earth. You gotta give a child something to believe in. Because as I wrote many years ago, believing in nothing is believing in something; there's no such thing as believing in nothing. By that definition of "I believe in nothing" you believe in something, meaning you believe in nothingness. So nihilism is a belief system. You don't understand that. It takes my mind for you to understand that you nihilists – are actually believers...