My father used to say that when he was growing up the water was clear and there were tons of fireflies everywhere… He felt sorry for the kids growing up today… But it is really...

The afternoon my parents died, I was out shoplifting with Irene Klauson.

Rage swept over her at being young, young and little, as if some evil fairy had put that spell on her. Why must you be locked up in this dreadful cage of childhood for twenty...

Most people are afflicted with an inability to say what they see or think. They say there’s nothing more difficult than to define a spiral in words; they claim it is necessary to use the...

They climbed the wide stairways. Their footsteps echoed and echoed through the house. “What on earth will you be doing with something so large?” said Mum.”I shall live in it with my servants, of course,”...

There are only two things that determine whether you’re old enough to do something — whether you understand what the hell you’re getting yourself into — and whether you’re willing to accept responsibility for it...

I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still...

En sevdiği oyuncağıydı. Neydi? Kırmızıya boyanmış, ufak, tahta bir kuş. Kırmızıydı, gerçekten öyleydi; tam da gün ışığında, gölgede, mumlarla, şöminenin başında ona bakan bir oğlan çocuğunu hayallere daldıracak, parlak, tatlı bir kırmızı. Ama muhabbetkuşu ya...

Then at once they reached and hovered upon the imminent verge of sleep – but an intruder came, now, that would not “down”. It was conscience. They began to feel a vague fear that they...

He was thirteen that year, the age when children splinter off and abandon the old loves.

…because you are not trying simply to complete a set of books or toys or Weetabix cards, you are trying to complete yourself, to get back to the whole person you were before, as a...

To My MotherYou too, my mother, read my rhymesFor love of unforgotten times,And you may chance to hear once moreThe little feet along the floor.

We can’t leave the past in the past because, the past is who we are. It’s like saying I wish I could forget English. So, there is no leaving the past in the past. It...

Time plays tricks on mothers. It teases you with breaks and brief caesuras, only to skip wildly forward, bringing breathtaking changes to your baby’s body. Only he wasn’t a baby anymore, and how often did...

What is so real as the cry of a child?A rabbit’s cry may be wilderBut it has no soul.

We spend at least $5 for remedial education right now for every dollar we put in early childhood education. All the studies on early childhood education show this is going to pay for itself.

If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a man.

My whole life is out here-the whole of my life…I’d come here naked, as a boy-straight from that river out there-throw my clothes on the floor and climb into that loft and lie there dreaming...

When I stepped into the brown-tiled entryway of the Kentwood Public Library, the sunlight flowing down on me from the high windows, I felt a sense of importance. It gratified me to be in a...

The problem with a man is, he is no more a child.

I drank, sucking the blood out of the holes, experiencing for the first time since infancy the special pleasure of sucking nourishment, the body focused with the mind upon one vital source.

Every child likes to take a pencil to make a mark. Everybody makes beautiful things when they are three, four, or five years old. Most people lose that spontaneity; I think that always happens. Some...

I’ve always been serious that way, trying to evolve to a more conscious state. Funny thing about that,though. You tweak yourself,looking for more love, less lust, more compassion, less jealousy. You keep tweaking, keep adjusting...

Dan P. McAdams argues that children develop a narrative tone which influences their stories for the rest of their lives. Children gradually adopt an enduring assumption that everything will turn out well, or badly, depending...

The ground was silvery, as if some stars had fallen there.

She bent and placed a single daisy upon the grave. A simple white daisy. The plainest of flowers, perhaps the purest, Elspeth thought. It had cost next to nothing at all, and perhaps that was...

We carry our childhood with us.

That wish to enter into an elusive element which had urged Cosimo into the trees, was still working now inside him unsatisfied, making him long for a more intimate link, a relationship which would bind...

Whatever we know as children, this is the world, eaten whole and without question.

The question should be who do we want to be when we grow up, not what.

He carried his childhood like a hurt warm bird held to his middle-aged breast.

So basically, you get to play Super Mario all you want, any time you want, for FREE!””That is the single most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.

The day of birth is day of life.

Once-upon-a-time we buried the memories we didn’t want.

My childhood was absolutely delightful.

It’s sort of my go-to stock image of my childhood, actually. I think it has something to do with knowing I’ll never be able to go back to that time that makes me cry every...

Children are often like hostages under the care of authority, with spankings and groundings nudging them like guns pointed at their skulls, threatening to shoot if the wrong words are uttered.

Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where...

I do to miss my childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in simple things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not away from...

You can’t choose your childhood, it’s just what happens to you. But after that you choose. And that’s really what (makes you).

As his children, we were treated as some species of migrant workers who happened to be passing through. My father was the only person I ever knew who looked upon childhood as a dishonorable vocation...

The dilemma of the eighth-grade dance is that boys and girls use music in different ways. Girls enjoy music they can dance to, music with strong vocals and catchy melodies. Boys, on the other hand,...

That I always had space to run and that I had the opportunity to play with my imagination. I also loved that my mum drew and painted with me. I always remember that my parents...

You know, as an only child, you’re kind of in a bubble, and there are all sorts of things about my childhood that I still can’t really place.

In my childhood I led the life of a sage, when I grew up I started climbing trees

Being a child sucked. Being a teenager was worse. And being an adult seemed so far away that I had a better chance at swimming the length of the ocean than growing up.

My childhood was extreme.

Imagine, pretend, and play so you can become anyone you want to be. You don’t need to be afraid.

Adults were constantly auditioning, but for what?

as a childi supposei was not quitenormal.my happiest times werewheni was left alone inthe house on asaturday.