Quotes about child
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“It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere.”

Lois Lowry (1937) American writer

“I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

Love, Heart

“Libraries allow children to ask questions about the world and find the answers. And the wonderful thing is that once a child learns to use a library, the doors to learning are always open.”

Laura Bush (1946) First Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009

As quoted in The 21st Century Elementary Library Media Program (2009) by Carl A. Harvey, p. 3

Children, World, Question, Learning

“Tradionally, parents made decisions for a child, because presumably they are looking out for his or her best interests. But if they are blinded, instead, by the best interests of another one of their children, the system breaks down.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Children, Parent, Decision

“My son Asclepius had become the god of medicine by the time he was fifteen, and I couldn’t have been happier for him. It left me time for my other interests. Besides, it’s every god’s dream to have a child who grows up to be a doctor.”

Rick Riordan book The Hidden Oracle

Source: The Hidden Oracle

God, Dreams, Time

“Open yourself to an encounter with heaven, be as a little child. Release your desire to the winds of the universe. Trust your angels to catch your wish and bring it to you in a delightfully surprising way.”

Doreen Virtue (1958) American writer

Angels, Way, Universe

“You want to protect your child from pain, and what you get instead is life, and grace; and though theologians insist that grace is freely given, the truth is that sometimes you pay for it through the nose. And you can't pay your child's way.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Life, Pain, Truth, Way

“He could not construct for the child's pleasure the world he'd lost without constructing the loss as well and he thought perhaps the child had known this better than he.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Pleasure, World, Loss

“Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

Lie, Secret

“Don't be afraid, child,
The stories are always there.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Kiss of Deception

Source: The Kiss of Deception

“As a child, I was an imaginary playmate.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

“You have the optimism of a child. (Julian)
Peter Pan all the way. (Grace)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Way, Optimism

“Oh child, your language is so utterly simple and limited that it has the affect of extreme complication.
-Aunt Beast”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

“Sometimes it is the smallest thing that saves us: the weather growing cold, a child's smile, and a cup of excellent coffee.”

Jonathan Carroll (1949) novelist, short story writer

Smile, Coffee, Weather

“You have everything," she said slowly, as if she were explaining the order of the world to a small child. "A family, a great job, a lot of people who look up to you. You've got a place to go home to." She smiled a little. "So go.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Mercy

People, World, Family, Smile

“So how on earth can I bring a child into the world, knowing that such sorrow lies ahead, that it is such a large part of what it means to be human?
I'm not sure. That's my answer: I'm not sure.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

World, Parting

“A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: A stodgy parent is not fun at all! What a child wants - and DESERVES - is a parent who is SPARKY!”

Roald Dahl book Danny, the Champion of the World

Danny, the Champion of the World (1975)
Context: A Message to Children Who Have Read This Book - When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: a stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY.

Children, Parent

“You're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

People, Hell

“… mothers are often fondest of the child which has caused them the greatest pain.”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Pain

“The man that I named The Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing.”

Lois Lowry book The Giver

Source: The Giver

Love, Pain, Truth, Books

“O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.”

Leo Rosten (1908–1997) American writer

Life

“You can’t conceive, my child, nor can I or anyone the … appalling … strangeness of the mercy of God.”

Graham Greene book Brighton Rock

Source: Brighton Rock (1938)

God

“In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Nature and Selected Essays

Life, Youth

“I asked the girl if she could bring a sister for me. She did. Sister Maria Teresa. It was a very slow evening. We discussed the New Testament. We agreed that He was very well adjusted for an only child.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Girl, Sister

“What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

Variant: What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?

Love, Food

“The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

Source: The BFG

World, Sleep, Night

“The imagination is precious. Don't lose it. Don't lose the child in you.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Imagination

“God doesn't bribe, child. He just makes a sign and lets people take it as they will.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

God, People

“What child unable to sleep on a warm summer night hasn't thought he saw Peter Pan's sailing ship in the sky? I will teach you to see that ship.”

Roberto Cotroneo (1961) Italian journalist and writer

Sleep, Summer, Night

“Believe me, It would be better if we didn't meet again. Go back to school. Go back to your life. And next time they ask you, say no. Killing is for grown-ups and you're still a child.”

Anthony Horowitz book Stormbreaker

Source: Stormbreaker

Life, School, Time

“As a child, I was aware that, at night, infrared vision would reveal monsters hiding in the bedroom closet only if they were warm-blooded. But everybody knows that your average bedroom monster is reptilian and cold-blooded.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson book Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Source: Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Night

“When we commit violence against an infant girl, we call it child abuse; when we commit violence against an infant boy, we call it circumcision.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 221.

Girl, Boy

“A man’s emotions are what define him, and control is the hallmark of true strength. To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

Feeling, Dead

“All you have to do to educate a child is leave him alone and teach him to read. The rest is brainwashing.”

Ellen Gilchrist (1935) Fiction writer, poet

Education, Reading

“But you were Mine. My child. And I would not give you up.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Fury's Kiss

“A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows hunger.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon (1966)

Hunger

“Now," said Halt, "all I have to do is work out a way of beating these horse-riding devils."
Erak grinned at him. "That should be child's play," he said. "The hard part will be convincing Ragnak about it.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Battle for Skandia

Way, Horse, Parting

“It's so dark," she said lamely.

"You want me to hold your hand?"

Clary put both her hands behind her back like a small child.

"Don't talk down to me."

"Well, I could hardly talk up to you. You're too short.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“The child molester skipped breakfast, but said he'd grab a little something on the way to work.”

George Carlin book Brain Droppings

Source: Brain Droppings

Way

“Everything in the world needs kindness, child. [Ryssa]”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

World

“isn’t life a kind of corruption? A child is born, and the world sets in upon it. Taking things from it, stuffing things into it.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Life, World

“A starving child is a frightful sight. A starving vampire, even worse.”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

“The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.”

Nathaniel Branden (1930–2014) Canadian–American psychotherapist and writer

Source: Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

Sense, Strong

“For the first forty days a child
is given dreams of previous lives. Journeys, winding paths,
a hundred small lessons
and then the past is erased.”

Michael Ondaatje (1943) Canadian writer

Source: Handwriting

Dreams, Past

“Listen, child—if you’re at a party with a hundred people and one of them is the devil, he’ll be the last one you’d suspect.”

Dean Koontz book Deeply Odd

Source: Deeply Odd

People

“The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in me
Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye that watched before there was an ocean.”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

"Continent's End" in Tamar and Other Poems (1924)

Life, Star

“In my paranoid world every storekeeper thinks I’m stealing, every man thinks I’m a prostitute or a lesbian, every woman thinks I’m a lesbian or arrogant, and every child and animal sees the real me and it is evil.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: It Chooses You

World, Thinking, Evil, Animals

“Some people never say the words ‘I love you’, for like a child they’re longing to be told.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Love, People

“A teacher who cannot explain any abstract subject to a child does not himself thoroughly understand his subject; if he does not attempt to break down his knowledge to fit the child's mind, he does not understand teaching.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Life Is Worth Living

Understanding, Knowledge, Teachers

“Like every child, I adored her. Until I formed a brain and got to know her.”

Augusten Burroughs Possible Side Effects

Source: Possible Side Effects

“She has the heart of a child, you know. Yeah, it's in a box beside her bed.
- Kaia Skyhawk”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Surrender

Heart, Box

“Nothing is written stone, child. Even if it were, the stones can be shattered”

Melanie Rawn book Dragon Prince

Source: Dragon Prince

“When you're given a brilliant child you polish her and let her shine.
Pigs in Heaven”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

“Even as a small child, I understood that woman had secrets, and that some of these were only to be told to daughters. In this way we were bound together for eternity.”

Alice Hoffman book The Dovekeepers

Source: The Dovekeepers

Secret, Way, Daughters, For Mother

“It’s not important,” Silena insisted. “We have to find Charlie!”
Another first: a child of Aphrodite uninterested in jewellery.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Files

Source: The Demigod Files

“as a child
i suppose
i was not quite
normal.

my happiest times were
when
i was left alone in
the house on a
saturday.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Time, Housing

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Books, Reading, Help

“If you make my children, make any child, feel bad for who they are, I will teach you why people fear mama grizzlies more than papa grizzlies.”

Patricia Briggs book Dead Heat

Source: Dead Heat

Children, People, Fear, Feeling

“Every man, woman, and child is capable of extreme and utter prejudice and cruelty when they feel justified in their hatred.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

Feeling

“People often ask me where I stand politically. It's not that I disagree with Bush's economic policy or his foreign policy, it's that I believe he was a child of Satan sent here to destroy the planet Earth. Little to the left.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Shock and Awe (2003)

People

“The moral truth here is obvious: anyone who feels that the interests of a blastocyst just might supersede the interests of a child with a spinal cord injury has had his moral sense blinded by religious metaphysics.”

Sam Harris Letter to a Christian Nation

Source: 2000s, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), p. 32

Truth, Feeling, Sense

“When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child's hands, you are bringing that child news of the infinitely varied nature of life. You are an awakener.”

Paula Fox (1923–2017) Amercian book author

Life, Books, Nature, Reading

“For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be.”

John Connolly The Book of Lost Things

Source: The Book of Lost Things

“A child miseducated is a child lost.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Umaru Tanko Al-Makura on 29th July, 2013 at The Official Commissioning Of Ta’al Model School, Lafia By Nigeria's President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan where Umaru Tanko Al-Makura said: " And, because the human mind is our fundamental resource, we are determined to avail our children the opportunity to acquire the best education possible, since a child mis-educated is a child lost. http://www.spyghana.com/speech-delivered-by-his-excellency-umaru-tanko-al-makura/" <br class="br">Misattributed

“In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck - and, of course, courage.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Source: Fatherhood

Love, Courage

“There's no such thing as a tough child - if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

“I sometimes wake in the early morning & listen to the soft breathing of my child & I think to myself, this is one thing I will never regret & I carry that quiet with me all day long.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Thinking

“A parent is inexcusable who does not personally teach her child to think.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

Source: The Signature of All Things

Thinking, Parent, Personality

“When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, an evasion simply muddles 'em.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 9
Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Children

“There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Love, Sleep

“No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

Education, Soul, Effort, Wealth

“I was not a lovable child, and I'd grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it'd be a scribble with fangs.”

Gillian Flynn book Dark Places

Source: Dark Places

Soul, Drawing

“When I say to a parent, "read to a child", I don't want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.”

Mem Fox (1946) Australian academic and children's writer known for picture books

Source: Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever

Parent, Reading

“As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Books, School

“When I was a child, I thought as a child. But now I have put away childish things. … I must be scientific.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

Source: The Man in the High Castle (1962)
Context: When I was a child, I thought as a child. But now I have put away childish things.... I must be scientific.