Children And Play Quotes & Sayings

Interestingly, the British government announced a few weeks ago that they were going to introduce 500 educational targets for preschool children. And teachers complained that "when are the children going to have time to play?" Well, they're not supposed to play, because play is a right-brain, ad-lib, creative pursuit. The idiot politicians who are introducing it don't understand this, but the shadow-people from which it is generated certainly do. They want to stimulate the left brain as early as possible. — David Icke

Dance. Dance for the joy and breath of childhood. Dance for all children, including that child who is still somewhere entombed beneath the responsibility and skepticism of adulthood. Embrace the moment before it escapes from our grasp. For the only promise of childhood, of any childhood, is that it will someday end. And in the end, we must ask ourselves what we have given our children to take its place. And is it enough? — Richard Paul Evans

Loving me with my shoes off
means loving my long brown legs,
sweet dears, as good as spoons;
and my feet, those two children
let out to play naked. — Anne Sexton

If a woman liked to play with words and set them in patterns and make pictures with them, and was taking care of herself and bothering nobody, and enjoyed her life without a lot of bawling children around, why shouldn't she? — Kate Bolick

Fences, unlike punishments, clearly mark out the perimeters of any specified territory. Young children learn where it is permissible to play, because their backyard fence plainly outlines the safe area. They learn about the invisible fence that surrounds the stove, and that Grandma has an invisible barrier around her cabinet of antique teacups. — Jeanne Elium

People know that Mr. Ellison had a tough beginning, they are aware of a little boy who strived for acceptance, who wished to be like all the other little boys on the block, but found himself always falling short. Unlike majority of children who are carried in the arms and guidance of a father; that separate the dark skies to let you see the light of encouragement and a future glimpse of what they believe you can be. He rather grew up drawing in the sands his own image of what he thought he should be. People are determined to make him into a motivational speech, but remove the essence that still remains of the tragedy that brought everything into play. — Avra Amar Filion

I believe adopting free unstructured play, within an appropriate framework, has rich potential in bringing up happy, well-balanced and resilient children. — Iben Dissing Sandahl

Play on lively, diversified sidewalks differs from virtually all other daily incidental play offered American children today: It is play not conducted in a matriarchy.
Most city architectural designers and planners are men. Curiously, they design and plan to exclude men as part of normal, daytime life wherever people live. In planning residential life, they aim at filling the presumed daily needs of impossibly vacuous housewives and preschool tots. They plan, in short, strictly for matriarchal societies. — Jane Jacobs

If a child has been able in his play to give up his whole loving being to the world around him, he will be able, in the serious tasks of later life, to devote himself with confidence and power to the service of the world. — Rudolf Steiner

I believe we can find God in many ways. I believe our heavenly parents seek us out wherever we live, whether that be strictly in the mind, in despair and joy, in an office, or in nature. It is sometimes hard to recognize them or their efforts because we have already written their parts, made up our minds about what a spiritual life looks like. I know for sure, though, that when I stop and enter that space where my children are most comfortable--a space of play, imagination, and possibility--calmness enters in as I believe again that many things are possible. — Ashley Mae Hoiland

Not long after the book came out I found myself being driven to a meeting
by a professor of electrical engineering in the graduate school I of MIT. He said that after reading the book he realized that his graduate students were using on him, and had used for the ten years and more he had been teaching there, all the evasive strategies I described in the book - mumble, guess-and-look, take a wild guess and see what happens, get the teacher to answer his own questions, etc.
But as I later realized, these are the games that all humans play when others
are sitting in judgment on them. — John Holt

I believe motherhood will be the seminal event in your life. You will find it in turns gratifying, frustrating, amazing, and overwhelming. It will be the most marvelous, challenging, vital role you'll ever play. " 'Someone once told me, "As mothers, our job is not to raise children, but to raise adults. — Lori Nelson Spielman

The golf links lie so near the mill, That almost every day, The laboring children can look out, And watch the men at play — Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn

All our work in the field, in the garden, in the city, in the home, in struggle, in government-to what does it all amount before God except child's play, by means of which God is pleased to give his gifts in the field, at home, and everywhere? These are the masks of our Lord God, behind which he wants to be hidden and to do all things. — Martin Luther

Still, most of those effects occur in the context of harmless play and it is patently obvious that children are not normally turned into aggressive little monsters by TV or video games, since most children do not become aggressive little monsters. — Hugh Mackay

I did 'Narnia' because it was a good opportunity and all that, but really? I wanted to play Mr. Tumnus because he's my favourite children's character. That was awesome. — James McAvoy

My dear Princess, if you could creep unseen about your City, peeping at will through the curtain-shielded windows, you would come to think that all the world was little else than a big nursery full of crying children with none to comfort them. The doll is broken: no longer it sweetly sqeaks in answer to our pressure, "I love you, kiss me." The drum lies silent with the drumstick inside, no longer do we make a brave noise in the nursery. The box of tea-things we have clumsily put out foot upon; there will be no more merry parties around the three-legged stool. The tin trumpet will not play the note we want to sound; the wooden bricks keep falling down; the toy has exploded and burnt our fingers. Never mind, little man, little woman, we will try and mend things to-morrow — Jerome K. Jerome

I've got great people who handle my schedule, and everything does revolve around the children. If there's a parents' night or an Easter bonnet parade or a Nativity play, whatever it might be, then I plan everything around that. — Victoria Beckham

Without education, your children can never really meet the challenges they will face. So it's very important to give children education and explain that they should play a role for their country. — Nelson Mandela

I think it's God that makes people care for people, Jefferson. I think it's God makes children play and people sing. I believe it's God that brings loved ones together. I believe it's God that makes trees bud and food grow out of the earth. — Ernest J. Gaines

It's absolutely crucial that every child-serving organization - be it an elementary school, daycare, or community center - provide its children with time and space to play. — Darell Hammond

The modified Mozart used by Tomatis, Paul, iLs, and others over time in an individualized therapy must be distinguished from claims made in the media in the 1990s that mothers could raise the IQ of their children by having them briefly listen to unfiltered Mozart. This claim was based on a study not of mothers and babies but of college students who listened to Mozart ten minutes a day and improved IQ scores on spatial reasoning tests - an effect that lasted only ten to fifteen minutes! Hype aside, different studies by Gottfried Schlaug, Christo Pantev, Laurel Trainor, Sylvain Moreno, and Glenn Schellenberg have shown that sustained music training, such as learning to play an instrument, can lead to brain change, enhance verbal and math skills, and even modestly increase IQ.] — Norman Doidge

In 1600 the specialization of games and pastimes did not extend beyond infancy; after the age of three or four it decreased and disappeared. From then on the child played the same games as the adult, either with other children or with adults ... Conversely, adults used to play games which today only children play. — Philippe Aries

When I was 12 my brother told me I had to wear the burqa, but I really wanted to play, because I was a child. It's an age you want to play outside and have a good time. And they told me I had to wear it or I couldn't leave the home. I felt it was controlling me, because when I wore it I felt I wasn't a child anymore. — Malina Suliman

It is intellectually and spiritually incoherent to believe in the innocent play of children when you are willing to sacrifice them upon the altar of your ambition, your avarice, your lusts, or your convenience. You cannot suppress the reality of the child without amputating your humanity and searing the wound with bitumen and pitch. The — Anthony M. Esolen

You are young men and not children. The idea is that art allows the child imprisoned inside the adult to come out to play and celebrate the world and its beauty." He said that art was intimately linked with immortality: a challenge to death and time, a celebration of life. — Sinan Antoon

When politicians like Sen. Joseph Lieberman target video game violence, perhaps it is to distract attention from the material conditions that give rise to a culture of domestic violence, the economic policies that make it harder for most of us to own our own homes, and the development practices which pave over the old grasslands and forests. Video games did not make backyard play spaces disappear; rather, they offer children some way to respond to domestic confinement. — Henry Jenkins

In the creative process there is the father, the author of the play; the mother, the actor pregnant with the part; and the child, the role to be born. — Constantin Stanislavski

GENERAL MAXIMS FOR HEALTH. Rise early. Eat simple food. Take plenty of exercise. Never fear a little fatigue. Let not children be dressed in tight clothes; it is necessary their limbs and muscles should have full play, if you wish for either health or beauty. Avoid the necessity of a physician, if you can, by careful attention to your diet. Eat what best agrees with your system, and resolutely abstain from what hurts you, however well you may like it. A few days' abstinence, and cold water for a beverage, has driven off many an approaching disease. If you find yourself really ill, send for a good physician. Have nothing to do with quacks; — Lydia Maria Francis Child

The physical exercise and emotional stretching that children enjoy in unorganized play is more varied and less time-bound than is found in organized sports. Playtime - especially unstructured, imaginative, exploratory play - is increasingly recognized as an essential component of wholesome child development. — Richard Louv

[E]verywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear. — Emma Donoghue

Florida has its own rhythm, too. People go to work, they watch their children learn and grow and start families of their own. They play in the sun and pass their lives enjoying the outsized blessings that make our state unique. — Jeb Bush

Having to act like an adult because I was directing a big movie but also feeling like a child because we had reindeer and big cameras and they had fake snow. I just wanted to go play in the snow. — Todd Strauss-Schulson

THE SENTIMENTALIZATION OF CHILDHOOD has produced a great many paradoxes. The most curious, however, may be that children have acquired more and more stuff the more useless they have become. Until the late nineteenth century, when kids were still making vital contributions to the family economy, they didn't have toys as we know them. They played with found and household objects (sticks, pots, brooms). In his book Children at Play, the scholar Howard Chudacoff writes, Some historians even maintain that before the modern era, the most common form of children's play occurred not with toys but with other children - siblings, cousins, and peers. — Jennifer Senior

Sometimes, the Angel [of Music] leans over the cradle ... and that is how there are little prodigies who play the fiddle at six better than men of fifty, which, you must admit is very wonderful. Sometimes, the Angel comes much later, because the children are naughty and won't learn their lessons or practice their scales. And sometimes, he does not come at all, because the children have a wicked heart or a bad conscience. — Gaston Leroux

It will take a massive effort to move society from corporate domination, in which industry's rights to pollute and damage health and the environment supersede the public's right to live, work, and play in safety. This is a political fight. The science is already there, showing that people's health is at risk. To win, we will need to keep building the movement, networking with one another, planning, strategizing, and moving forward. Our children's futures, and those of their unborn children, are at stake. — Lois Gibbs

We went far down the garden to the farthest end, where the children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow and come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have two, or it is no use. When the footman had finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: Poor little doggie, you saved HIS child! — Mark Twain

When the perfect order prevails, the world is like a home shared by all. Leaders are capable and virtuous. Everyone loves and respects their own parents and children as well as the parents and children of others. The old are cared for, adults have jobs, children are nourished and educated. There is a means of support for all those who are disabled or find themselves alone in the world. Everyone has an appropriate role to play in the family and society. Devotion to public duty leaves no place for idleness. Scheming for ill gain is unknown. Sharing displaces selfishness and materialism. — Confucius

I've had a great deal of experience with adolescents over the centuries, and I've discovered that as a group these awkward half children take themselves far too seriously. Moreover, appearance is everything for the adolescent. I suppose it's a form of play-acting. The adolescent knows that the child is lurking under the surface, but he'd sooner die than let it out, and I was no different. I was so intent on being "grown-up" that I simply couldn't relax and enjoy life.
Most people go through this stage and outgrow it. Many, however, do not. The pose becomes more important than reality, and these poor creatures become hollow people, forever striving to fit themselves into an impossible mold. — David Eddings

Every year we get together and throw a big feast for the winter solstice, a festival in which every game and every confectionary you could possibly imagine suddenly become a reality. The children put on a play about the Black Bear and the Gray Bear, an age-old story that relates the Gray Bear's trip to eternity through the freezing white snow of the north. At the very end of the celebration the men and the women perform the warm dance, a giant, joyful circle dance the Shoshone invented thousands of years ago in order to send blessings to the wild animals who — Rose Christo

Never play peek-a-boo with a child on a long plane trip. There's no end to the game. Finally I grabbed him by the bib and said, "Look, it's always gonna be me!" — Rita Rudner

To take nature and natural play away from children may be tantamount to withholding oxygen. — Richard Louv

Play is a sacred thing, a divine ordinance, for developing in the child a harmonious and healthy organism, and preparing that organism for the commencement of the work of life. — J.G. Holland

Parents bobble between a nostalgia-infused yearning for their children to play and fear that time spent playing is time lost to more practical pursuits. — Robin Marantz Henig

Children play from the library of their imagination and it feels real to them. — S. E. Entsua-Mensah

Laplace would have found it child's-play to fix a ratio of progression in mathematical science between Descartes, Leibnitz, Newton and himself — Henry Adams

A creative invitation is a combination of materials and context that intrigue children with a suggestion of play. — Rachelle Doorley

The common people pray for rain, healthy children and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. — George R R Martin

Just as a vampire has no choice but to drink human blood, I have no choice but to kill people. My fate was already decided the moment I was born. I wasn't abused by my parents and scarred mentally. I have no ancestors that were murderers. I was raised in a very ordinary household. But whereas ordinary children play alone with imaginary friends and pets, I spent my time staring at imaginary corpse. — Otsuichi

Play for young children is not recreation activity, It is not leisure-time activity nor escape activity. Play is thinking time for young children. It is language time. Problem-solving time. It is memory time, planning time, investigating time. It is organization-of-ideas time, when the young child uses his mind and body and his social skills and all his powers in response to the stimuli he has met. — James L Hymes

Playdate. (n) A Date arranged by adults in which young children are brought together, usually at the home of one of them, for the premeditated purpose of "playing". A feature of contemporary American upscale suburban life in which "neighborhoods" have ceased to exist, and children no longer trail in and out of "neighbor childrens" houses or play in "backyards". In the absence of sidewalks in newer "gated" coummunities, children cannot "walk" to playdates but must be driven by adults, usually mothers. A "playdate" is never initiated by the players (i.e., children), but only by their mothers.
In American-suburban social climbing through playdating, this is the chapter you've been awaiting. — Joyce Carol Oates

Nurse's Song
WHEN the voices of children are heard on the green,
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast,
And everything else is still.
Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise;
Come, come, leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies.
No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,
And the hills are all cover'd with sheep.
Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,
And then go home to bed.'
The little ones leaped and shouted and laugh'd
And all the hills echoed. — William Blake

I do not care what you do, and that is hard for you to hear. Yet do you care what your children do when you send them out to play? Is it a matter of consequence to you whether they play tag, or hide and seek, or pretend? No, it is not, because you know they are perfectly safe. You have placed them in an environment which you consider friendly and very okay. — Neale Donald Walsch

They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blond curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. When I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it. — Suzanne Collins

It was a cruel world though. More than half of all children died before they could reach maturity, thanks to chronic epidemics and malnutrition. People dropped like flies from polio and tuberculosis and smallpox and measles. There probably weren't many people who lived past forty. Women bore so many children, they became toothless old hags by the time they were in their thirties. People often had to resort to violence to survive. Tiny children were forced to do such heavy labor that their bones became deformed, and little girls were forced to become prostitutes on a daily basis. Little boys too, I suspect. Most people led minimal lives in worlds that had nothing to do with richness of perception or spirit. City streets were full of cripples and beggars and criminals. Only a small fraction of the population could gaze at the moon with deep feeling or enjoy a Shakespeare play or listen to the beautiful music of Dowland. — Haruki Murakami

Since the beginning of time, children have not liked to study. They would much rather play, and if you have their interests at heart, you will let them learn while they play; they will find that what they have mastered is child's play. — Carl Orff

Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?-Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The Tylwyth Teg were immortal beings, but the burden of living for endless millennia was often tedium. It was one reason that the Fair Ones tended to play terrible pranks upon mortals. Like bored children, they sprang upon the unwary, seeking diversion. So it had been when a weary Celtic warrior turned reluctant gladiator had fought his way to freedom at last. Wounded and near death, pursued by his former captors, he'd blundered straight into the territory of the Tylwyth Teg in the steep hills northwest of Isca Silurum ... . — Dani Harper

I believe that the school must represent present life - life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the play-ground. — John Dewey

It was like a dam of musical critique had broken. Imasu turned on him with eyes that flashed instead of shining. It is worse than you can possibly imagine! When you play, all of my mother's flowers lose the will to live and expire on the instant. The quinoa has no flavour now. The llamas are migrating because of your music, and llamas are not a migratory animal. The children now believe there is a sickly monster, half horse and half large mournful chicken, that lives in tha lake and calls out to the world to grant it the sweet release of death. — Cassandra Clare

I could not be more determined and robust about this. I want more children to play cricket and to have the chance to compete. I want them playing on the correct pitches with hard balls and proper headgear. — Tessa Jowell

The best athlete wants his opponent at his best. The best general enters the mind of his enemy. The best businessman serves the communal good. The best leader follows the will of the people. All of the embody the virtue of non-competition. Not that they don't love to compete, but they do it in the spirit of play. In this they are like children and in harmony with the Tao. — Laozi

He merely reared his children as best he could, and in terms of the affection his children felt for him, he best was indeed good: he was never too tired to play Keep-Away; he was never too busy to invent marvelous stories; he was never too absorbed in his own problems to listen earnestly to a tale of woe; every neight he read aloud to them until his voice cracked. — Harper Lee

The child plays at being an adult long before he is one, and so you can play with more desirable beliefs while you are still growing into that more beneficial picture. — Seth Roberts

Liar! I know that you humans build your life in lies. It starts with your mortal lords and their fabricated gods. They use fictitious stories to impregnate the minds of people, and like herds of sheep they do as their told. With manipulation alone is enough to secure their reign. After all, is it not in your nature to be wanted and purposeful? It is such an easy game to play. I have observed this falsehood accepted by fathers and mothers over and over again. The idiocy becomes one with their children, and they become the infrastructure that not only sedates but corrodes the soul with instructed conformity. In the end, lies are all that you are. — H.S. Crow

It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childhood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play ... today's children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games. — Marie Winn

[The child] takes his play very seriously and he expends large amounts of emotion on it. The opposite of play is not what is serious but what is real. — Sigmund Freud

They [parents] can help the children work out schedules for homework, play, and television that minimize the conflicts involved inwhat to do first. They can offer moral support and encouragement to persist, to try again, to struggle for understanding and mastery. And they can share a child's pleasure in mastery and accomplishment. But they must not do the job for the children. — Dorothy H Cohen

Never neglect an opportunity to play leap-frog; it is the best of all games, and, unlike the terribly serious and conscientious pastimes of modern youth, will never become professionalized. — Hesketh Pearson

It is time for a return to childhood, to simplicity, to running and climbing and laughing in the sunshine, to experiencing happiness instead of being trained for a lifetime of pursuing happiness. It is time to let children be children again. — L.R. Knost

As children's inquiries are not to be slighted, so also great care is to be taken, that they never receive deceitful and illuding answers. They easily perceive when they are slighted or deceived, and quickly learn the trick of neglect, dissimulation, and falsehood, which they observe others to make use of. We are not to intrench upon truth in any conversation, but least of all with children; since, if we play false with them, we not only deceive their expectation, and hinder their knowledge, but corrupt their innocence, and teach them the worst of vices. — John Locke

Teaching music is not my main purpose. I want to make good citizens. If children hear fine music from the day of their birth and learn to play it, they develop sensitivity, discipline and endurance. They get a beautiful heart. — Shinichi Suzuki

I did play Ramses II once, who lived to be 91 and had 120 children, but he died 4,000 years ago. — Christopher Lee

From a child's play, we can gain understanding of how he sees and construes the world
what he would like it to be, what his concerns are, what problems are besetting him. — Bruno Bettelheim

Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure. — Henry David Thoreau

Let the children play, let the children be children! And let us wish the same thing for the adults, let them also be children, especially when they turn into a boring creature! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

I believe that the most urgent need of parents today is to instill in our children a moral vision: what does it mean to be a good person, an excellent neighbor, a compassionate heart? What does it mean to say that God exits, that He loves us and He cares for us? What does it mean to love and forgive each other? Parents and caregivers of children must play a primary role in returning our society to a healthy sense of the sacred. We must commit to feeding our children's souls in the same way we commit to feeding their bodies. — Marianne Williamson

But, on the other hand, the study of music is one of the best ways to learn about human nature. This is why I am so sad about music education being practically nonexistent today in schools. Education means preparing children for adult life; teaching them how to behave and what kinds of human beings they want to be. Everything else is information and can be learned in a very simple way. To play music well you need to strike a balance between your head, your heart, and your stomach. And if one of the three is not there or is there in too strong a dose, you cannot use it. What better way than music to show a child how to be human? — Edward W. Said

There is nothing, I think, more unfortunate than to have soft, chubby, fat-looking children who go to watch their school play basketball every Saturday and regard that as their weeks exercise. — John F. Kennedy

a woman who contributes to the life of mankind by the occupation of motherhood is taking as high a place in the division of human labor as anyone else could take. If she is interested in the lives of her children and is paving the way for them to become fellow men, if she is spreading their interests and training them to cooperate, her work is so valuable that it can never be rightly rewarded. In our own culture the work of a mother is undervalued and often regarded as a not very attractive or estimable occupation. It is paid only indirectly and a woman who makes it her main occupation is generally placed in a position of economic dependence. The success of the family, however, rests equally upon the work of the mother and the work of the father. Whether the mother keeps house or works independently, her work as a mother does not play a lower role than the work of her husband. — Alfred Adler

Proper history teaching is being crushed under the weight of play-based pedagogy which infantilises children, teachers and our culture. — Michael Gove

I play a scientist in a futuristic world in which 99% of the men have been wiped out. As a result, the women are nearly all homosexuals and the children are cloned. — Julie Bowen

The point is to develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition and to guide the child over to important fields for society. Such a school demands from the teacher that he be a kind of artist in his province. — Albert Einstein

It's sad if people think that's (homemaking) a dull existance, [but] you can't just buy an apartment and furnish it and walk away. It's the flowers you choose, the music you play, the smile you have waiting. I want it to be gay and cheerful, a haven in this troubled world. I don't want my husband and children to come home and find a rattled woman. Our era is already rattled enough, isn't it? — Audrey Hepburn

She was tired of being told how it was by this generation, who'd botched things so badly. They'd sold their children a pack of lies: God and country. Love your parents. All is fair. And then they'd sent those boys, her brother, off to fight a great monster of a war that maimed and killed and destroyed whatever was inside them. Still they lied, expecting her to mouth the words and play along. Well, she wouldn't. She knew now that the world was a long way from fair. She knew the monsters were real. — Libba Bray

We had the schools we wanted, in a way. Parents did not tend to show up at schools demanding that their kids be assigned more challenging reading or that their kindergarteners learn math while they still loved numbers. They did show up to complain about bad grades, however. And they came in droves, with video cameras and lawn chairs and full hearts, to watch their children play sports. — Amanda Ripley

I wish children could grow according to their natural pace: sleep when sleepy, wake up when rested, eat when hungry, cry when upset, play and explore without being unnecessarily interrupted; in other words, be allowed to grow and blossom as each was meant to. — Magda Gerber

Let the child be the scriptwriter, the director and the actor in his own play. — Magda Gerber

My dear woman, our greatest problem is
that almost everything is a goddamned code. We do not know what is real any more. Every gesture is symbolic. A man cannot shit short of some pundit finding hidden meaning in it. Even having children is a metaphor. Hence, we cannot trust ourselves; and, therefore, we do not trust anybody. No my dear, I do not believe in codes, and even if I did I certainly would not use one in my sleep! (from the play, Sixteen Words For Water) — Billy Marshall Stoneking

In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. — Charles Dickens

Tiddlywinks, tiddlywinks, I want to play tiddlywinks, chanted Ramona, shaking her head back and forth. — Beverly Cleary

Innately, children seem to have little true realistic anxiety. They will run along the brink of water, climb on the window sill, play with sharp objects and with fire, in short, do everything that is bound to damage them and to worry those in charge of them, that is wholly the result of education; for they cannot be allowed to make the instructive experiences themselves. — Sigmund Freud

I want my children to be able to meet and play and communicate with many other children on their own, not only when they are driven somewhere. I want them to grow up in an environment that is not just a place where people sleep but where people work.. and where people enjoy themselves. — Moshe Safdie

And what does every child believe every adult capable of doing? Of actually being able to bend the world to an inner desire, exactly what the child is busily practicing in his passionate play. — Joseph Chilton Pearce

Dads. Do you honestly expect anybody to believe that you can't find 20 minutes to step away from your computer or turn off the television to play with your child? It has to happen every single day. Do you not understand that children will hinge their entire facet of trust on whether or not their dad plays with them and how involved he is when he plays with them? Do you know the damage you do by not playing with your children every day? — Dan Pearce

Children raised with respect and inner direction tend to play well in groups, at times quite peacefully, each involved in her own project or involved with the other chidren. — Magda Gerber

The great enemy of creativity is fear. When we're fearful, we freeze up - like a nine-year-old who won't draw pictures, for fear everybody will laugh. Creativity has a lot to do with a willingness to take risks. Think about how children play. They run around the playground, they trip, they fall, they get up and run some more. They believe everything will be all right. They feel capable; they let go. Good businesspeople behave in a similar way: they lose $15 million, gain $20 million, lose $30 million and earn it back. If that isn't playing, I don't know what is! — Faith Ringgold

Research has shown that children who play often both solitarily and socially become more creative and imaginative than those whose exposure to play and toys is limited. — Brian Sutton-Smith

You can sit down with your child and prompt him to show you something - perhaps how to play a game [on the computer]. By learning a game, you're getting close to the kid and gaining insight into ways of learning. The kid can see this happening and feels respected, so it fosters the relationship between you and the kid. — Seymour Papert

From watching children play with objects designed as "amusements," we come to a new place, a place of cold comforts. Child and adult, we imagine made to measure companions. Or, at least we imagine companions who are always interested in us. — Sherry Turkle