Childhood Quotes - Page 35

• I rarely think about my childhood. It's a slippery thing I can't keep hold of for long - it slithers out of my grasp. And a lot of the time I remember what was missing instead of what was there. I am a chronicler of absence.

  Carrie Fisher

  Thinking, Long, Missing

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• Childhood is the province of the imagination and when I immerse myself in it, I re-create it as it was, as it could have been, as I wanted - and didn't want - it to be.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Imagination, Want, Provinces

  Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Milazzo (1989). “Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates”, p.94, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Looking back into childhood is like looking into a semi-transparent globe within which people and places lie embedded. A shake - and they stir, rise up, circle in inter-weaving groups, then settle down again.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Lying, Past, Circles

  Rosamond Lehmann (1975). “The ballad and the source”, Harvest Books

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• Policy is formed by preconceptions, by long implanted biases. When information is relayed to policy-makers, they respond in terms of what is already inside their heads and consequently make policy less to fit the facts than to fit the notions and intentions formed out of the mental baggage that has accumulated in their minds since childhood.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Government, Long, Mind

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• A book consists of two layers: on top, the readable layer ... and underneath, a layer that was inaccessible. You only sense its existence in a moment of distraction from the literal reading, the way you see childhood through a child. It would take forever to tell what you see, and it would be pointless.

  Marguerite Duras

  Children, Book, Reading

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• perhaps there is something more than courtesy behind the dissembling reticence of childhood. ... Most artists dislike having their incomplete work considered and discussed and this analogy, I think, is valid. The child is incomplete, too, and is constantly experimenting as he seeks his own style of thought and feeling.

  Dervla Murphy

  Children, Thinking, Artist

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• Well, we can skip childhood because I didn't have any. Not one goddam moment on the Good Ship Lollipop.

  Joan Crawford

  Actors, Lollipop, Ships

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• age means nothing. If anything I feel that I'm still a child: eternity and childhood are my ages.

  Marguerite Yourcenar

  Children, Mean, Age

  Marguerite Yourcenar, Matthieu Galey (1984). “With Open Eyes: Conversations with Matthieu Galey”, Boston : Beacon Press

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• in the comparatively short time between my childhood and my daughter's, the business society has ceased urging people to produce and is now exerting its very considerable influence to get them to consume.

  Margaret Halsey

  Daughter, People, Influence

  Margaret Halsey (1952). “The Folks at Home”

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• But the gates of my happy childhood had clanged shut behind me; I had become adult enough to recognize the need to conceal unbearable emotions for the sake of others.

  Eva Figes

  Sake, Unbearable, Adults

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• Wisdom leads us back to childhood.

  Blaise Pascal

  Blaise Pascal, James M. Houston (2006). “The Mind on Fire: Faith for the Skeptical and Indifferent”, p.221, David C Cook

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• Do you know anyone who would - secretly, sincerely, in his innermost self - really prefer to return to childhood?

  Anita Desai

  Self, Return, Sincerely

  The Clear Light of Day ch. 1 (1980)

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• Smell can conjure up memories for me stronger than any other sense. Especially childhood memories. Perhaps because you were that much shorter and therefore closer to the ground and its smells.

  Lilli Palmer

  Memories, Smell, Stronger

  Lilli Palmer (1975). “Change lobsters, and dance: an autobiography”

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• None of us ever escape the first few years of our lives. They make a mould into which we are cast, and though it may be broken, and we turned loose, some remnant of it, some intangible evil or lovely thing or both, will remain with us, like the odor to a flower, or the smoothness to a piece of ivory. It is part of the immortality of youth.

  Lizette Woodworth Reese

  Flower, Years, Ivory

  Lizette Woodworth Reese (1929). “A Victorian Village: Reminiscences of Other Days”

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• The death of childhood is the beginning of poetry.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

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• Childhood may do without a grand purpose, but manhood cannot.

  J. G. Holland

  Purpose, May, Manhood

  J. G. HOLLAND (1866). “PLAIN TALKS ON FAMILIAR SUBJECTS”, p.109

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• I lifted the white cloth from the white face of the man that I had worshipped as an idol-looked upon as a demi-god. Notwithstanding the violence of the death of the President, there was something beautiful as well as grandly solemn in the expression of the placid face. There lurked the sweetness and gentleness of childhood, and the stately grandeur of godlike intellect. I gazed long at the face, and turned away with tears in my eyes and a choking sensation in my throat. Ah! never was man so widely mourned before. The whole world bowed their heads in grief when Abraham Lincoln died.

  Elizabeth Keckley

  Beautiful, Grief, Eye

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• Boredom!!! Shooting!!! Shelling!!! People being killed!!! Despair!!! Hunger!!! Misery!!! Fear!!! That's my life! The life of an innocent eleven-year-old schoolgirl!! A schoolgirl without a school, without the fun and excitement of school. A child without games, without friends, without the sun, without birds, without nature, without fruit, without chocolate or sweets, with just a little powdered milk. In short, a child without a childhood.

  Zlata Filipović

  Sweet, Children, Fun

  Zlata Filipović (1994). “Le journal de Zlata”, Viking Adult

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• A sibling is the lens through which you see your childhood.

  Ann Hood

  Sibling, Lenses, Your Children

  Ann Hood (2014). “Do Not Go Gentle: My Search for Miracles in a Cynical Time”, p.70, Open Road Media

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• my childhood grew thin and flat, paperlike. It was tired and threadbare, and in low moments it didn't look like it would last until I was grown up.

  Tove Ditlevsen

  Tired, Looks, Lasts

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• There is something very appealing about a room which one occupied as a child; it brings back one's childhood more vividly than anything else I know.

  D.E. Stevenson

  Children, Rooms, Knows

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• Throughout my childhood, my parents dropped me off at a multitude of therapists' offices in hopes that I'd avoid growing up to be the kind of asshole who writes books about them. Also because it was sometimes easier than finding a nanny.

  Jenny Mollen

  Growing Up, Book, Writing

  Jenny Mollen (2014). “I Like You Just the Way I Am: Stories About Me and Some Other People”, p.29, St. Martin's Press

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• I wonder if I love the communal act of eating so much because throughout my childhood, with four older brothers and a mom who worked in the restaurant business, I spent a lot of time fending for myself, eating alone - and recognizing how eating together made all the difference.

  Thomas Keller

  Mom, Brother, Food

  Thomas Keller (2016). “Bouchon”, p.2, Artisan Books

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• Man is evil, by nature man is a beast. People have to be educated from childhood, from kindergarten, that there should be no hatred.

  Marek Edelman

  Men, People, Evil

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• I had a very tough childhood. I came here from Italy in the '70s and didn't speak a word of English, so the kids at school tormented me. Truly, it was horrifying the names they called me, and the teachers never really did a thing to stop it.

  Giada De Laurentiis

  Teacher, School, Kids

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