Children Short Quotes & Sayings

Children from like 8 and even up to the college age - Spider-Man appeals to a fairly broad demographic but, like I said, a mean age probably of 12 is a good mark - they process information so quickly and it's not because of attention deficit or short attention span. — Thomas Haden Church

At 13:57 local time, a low yield nuclear warhead exploded in the city of Chongjin, North Korea.
A long standing military target. Chongjin is home to some 532,000 men, women, and children.
This city has survived a number of wars. It will not survive this.
But her people will.
As 13:57 and .00001 microseconds, half a million Koreans seemed to materialize on a hilltop 35 miles away from the blast.
They were carried there ...
One at a time, sometimes two ...
At a hair's breadth short of the speed of light ...
By one man ...
The Flash. The Fastest Man Alive. — Joe Kelly

It has been said that in every being there is another being and this being is the true self. Not a double. Not an opposite. Simply, the one each of us strives to be all our lives. Some who have suffered cruelty, violence, or abuse as children somehow short-circuit this search with their cries. They are kidnapped by the other self and abandoned in a strangely familiar place where they are victim to the same cruelty, violence, or abuse, but can remember little or none of it until such time as they are strong enough to cope. — Philip Davison

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 am a bomb but I mean you no harm. That I still am here to tell this, is a miracle: I was deployed on May 15, 1957, but I didn't go off because a British nuclear engineer, a young father, developed qualms after seeing pictures of native children marveling at the mushrooms in the sky, and sabotaged me. I could see why during that short drop before I hit the atoll: the island looks like god's knuckles in a bathtub, the ocean is beautifully translucent, corals glow underwater, a dead city of bones, allowing a glimpse into a white netherworld. I met the water and fell a few feet into a chromatic cemetery. The longer I lie here, listening to my still functioning electronic innards, the more afraid I grow of detonating after all this time. I don't share your gods, but I pray I shall die a silent death. — Marcus Speh

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

I was incredibly determined - I wrote short stories, I wrote the beginnings of novels. I wrote a little children's book and sent it to the editor-in-chief of the children's division of Simon and Schuster and she asked me to write a little children's book for a series she was doing. — Candace Bushnell

There is a fear of peace that I don't understand. Witness the old epithet "peaceniks," the association of peace with weakness. We mistake kindness for weakness in individuals, too. Gandhi found the essence of Christianity to be gentleness, the exaltation of means over ends. Using violence, against us or them, to achieve peace is like beating children to get them to be good. It only works in the short term. Believe in peace, think peace, live peace. Be a building-block of peace. Make it the center of your strength. — Jennifer James

Middle children weep longer than their brothers and sisters. Over her mother's shoulder, stilling her pains and her injured pride, Jackie Lacon watched the party leave. First, two men she had not seen before: one tall, one short and dark. They drove off in a small green van. No one waved to them, she noticed, or even said goodbye. Next, her father left in his own car; lastly a blond, good-looking man and a short fat one in an enormous overcoat like a pony blanket made their way to a sports car parked under the beech trees. For a moment she really thought there must be something wrong with the fat one, he followed so slowly and so painfully. Then, seeing the handsome man hold the car door for him, he seemed to wake, and hurried forward with a lumpy skip. Unaccountably, this gesture upset her afresh. A storm of sorrow seized her and her mother could not console her. — John Le Carre

Time is short, your obligations are infinite. Are your houses regulated, your children instructed, the afflicted relieved, the poor visited, the work of piety accomplished? — Jean Baptiste Massillon

I was a boy in the ads I did as a child. My sister was the girl, and I was the boy. I had short hair and I was in overalls and I was giving flowers to my sister Daisy, who fit their model of what a girl was supposed to look like. — Rose McGowan

Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don't use often enough. Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand.
And, above all, poetry is compacted metaphor or simile. Such metaphors, like Japanese paper flowers, may expand outward into gigantic shapes. Ideas lie everywhere through the poetry books, yet how rarely have I heard short story teachers recommending them for browsing.
What poetry? Any poetry that makes your hair stand up along your arms. Don't force yourself too hard. Take it easy. Over the years you may catch up to, move even with, and pass T. S. Eliot on your way to other pastures. You say you don't understand Dylan Thomas? Yes, but your ganglion does, and your secret wits, and all your unborn children. Read him, as you can read a horse with your eyes, set free and charging over an endless green meadow on a windy day. — Ray Bradbury

I had never thought I had much in common with anybody. I had no mother, no father, no roots, no biological similarities called sisters and brothers. And for a future I didn't want a split-level home with a station wagon, pastel refrigerator, and a houseful of blonde children evenly spaced through the years. I didn't want to walk into the pages of McCall's magazine and become the model housewife. I didn't even want a husband or any man for that matter. I wanted to go my own way. That's all I think I ever wanted, to go my own way and maybe find some love here and there. Love, but not the now and forever kind with chains around your vagina and a short circuit in your brain. I'd rather be alone. — Rita Mae Brown

Life is too short to waste time changing the sheets every week. Especially when you have small children who tend to wait until you change the sheets to then wet the sheets. — Mary Engelbreit

The democratization of media means that anyone with a phone can become a celebrity. Our short-sighted focus on self-esteem in children means that everyone gets a trophy, universities and education are "brands" instead of places of learning, standardized tests
are used to assess wisdom, and grade inflation is rampant. The tribe has been replaced with followers and likes. Our economy, our bodies, our health, our children, and frankly our psyches are in big trouble. — Ramani Durvasula

They were really children that morning. By nightfall none of them were.

First line from Patrick's short story - The Quarry-gang Kids. — Patrick McCusker

As the children were sitting there eating pears, a girl came walking along the road from town. When she saw the children she stopped and asked, "Have you seen my papa go by?"
"M-m-m," said Pippi. "How did he look? Did he have blue eyes?"
"Yes," said the girl.
"Medium large, not too tall and not too short?"
"Yes," said the girl.
"Black hat and black shoes?"
"Yes, exactly," said the girl eagerly.
"No, that one we haven't seen," said Pippi decidedly. — Astrid Lindgren

Even though we live in a world that people are much more conscience about being politically correct. The truth is if all children were taught from young (at home, church and school) that in our short existence on this planet, that we are all here to help humanity and to not hurt it and that hands are not for hurting but for trying to help all ... our world would be a much better place to live in. — Timothy Pina

Motherhood - no matter if you're a working mom or stay at home mom - is really tough sometimes. It can really leave us each day with a sense of wondering if we're doing it right. You know, it's a long term investment. You don't see big returns in the short term. Raising a child can easily pull you into being hyper-focused on the tough everyday moments of life. — Lysa TerKeurst

only until the children are born. Your life is your own only for a short time: — Amos Oz

Regarding children's literature, look for interesting content and well-constructed sentences clothed in literary language. The imagination should be warmed and the book should hold the interest of the child. Life's too short to spend time with books that bore us. — Deborah Taylor-Hough

When you are falling short in vocabulary to explain the emotion in your story.Than you are writing the right story — Tushar Upreti

These are often the children of overbearing narcissistic parents who cannot tolerate the teenager's growing need for separateness and threaten the child with psychological or actual abandonment as a punishment for exercising independence. The child considers the risks and decides prematurely to do what is expected, becoming a doctor. . .without first engaging in a journey of self-discovery. When the parents' or culture's roles and values are adopted wholesale and without examination, the process of establishing a personal identity is short-circuited. Some of these individuals rework this struggle more successfully later in life, while others are never free from the narcissistic web and only feel good when they are pleasing someone other than themselves. — Sandy Hotchkiss

Assuming mother's absence is only for a short time, don't be too concerned if you find yourself being more relaxed than she is over what the children eat. It is far better to maintain harmony and let mother cope with the problem later. You can use the excuse "You are only having this because Mummy's in hospital!". — Nursing Mothers' Association Of Australia

It matters to ourselves, of course, but it matters terribly to other people. Moral failure or spiritual failure or whatever you call it, makes such a vicious circle ... It seems as if when we love people and they fall short, we retaliate by falling shorter ourselves. Children are like that. Adults have a fearful responsibility. When they fail to live up to what children expect of them, the children give up themselves. So each generation keeps failing the next. — Dorothy Whipple

Like more than one Englishman in New York, he looked upon Americans as hopeless children whom Providence had perversely provided with this great swollen fat fowl of a continent. Any way one chose to relieve them of their riches, short of violence, was sporting, if not morally justifiable, since they would only squander it in some tasteless and useless fashion, in any event. — Tom Wolfe

There was a pier filled with thousands of people, men and women, fathers and mothers and children
so many children
children from the past and the present, children who had not yet been born, side by side, hand in hand, in caps, in short pants, filling the boardwalk and the rides and the wooden platforms, sitting on each other's shoulders, sitting in each other's laps. They were there, or would be there, becuause of the simple mundane things [he] had done in his life, the accidents he had prevented, the rides he had kept safe, the unnoticed turns he had affected every day. And while their lips did not move, [he] heard their voices, more voices then he could have imagined, and a peace came upon him that he had never known before. — Mitch Albom

Presently, Mary Mac - that's what we call her for short - has churned out more kids than I can count. It's like she's a hoarder, only for children. In terms of personal achievement, she's pretty much the patron saint of minivans and stretch marks. What is that meme I've seen about the prolific 19 Kids and Counting mother? Ah, yes, "It's a vagina, not a clown car." Add one persecution complex, stir, and, boom! Meet my older sister. — Jen Lancaster

Third tale (aka short stories) - His name is Sun and Adultery. My husband's is Elias. My children are named Enilson and Joaquim. I want them all to die. Except him. (That first one, light and bed.) I'm very sorry, my God, but there it is. Signed: Lazinha. — Hilda Hilst

Thomas Boston wrote: 'I never had such a clear and comfortable view of the Lord's having other use for children than our comfort; for which ends he removes them in infancy; so that they are not brought to the world in vain. I saw reason to bless the Lord, that I had been made father of six children, now in the grave, and that were with me but a very short time; but none of them lost; I will see them all at the resurrection. That clause in the covenant, "And the God of thy seed" was sweet and full of sap. — Anonymous

arse' is a traditional usage - nothing to be ashamed of." The Baron nodded. "It has a commendable grown-up sharpness to it. 'Ass,' on the other hand, is quite frankly for spinsters and little children." Tiffany turned the words on her tongue for a moment and said, "Yes, sir. I think that is probably the long and the short of it. — Terry Pratchett

A few days after I began my short story, I returned to his desk and handed him my updates. He pushed his wire-rimmed reading glasses way down on his nose and focused on the two pages. "Okay, you got a beginning; you got yourself a middle and an end. You got a wing-dinger opening line. But you don't have an establishing paragraph. Do you know what that is?"
He didn't wait for me to answer.
"It's kinda like an outdated road map for the reader," he said. "It gives the reader a general idea of where you're taking him, but doesn't tell him exactly how you intend to get there, which is all he needs to know. — John William Tuohy

The time we are given for parenting is so short, passes so quickly and is jumbled up with so many other priorities and disruptions that, in the end, we come to doubt that we used it in the best interests of our children. — Bryce Courtenay

Our children are too precious and their time with us too short for us to neglect the unspeakable privilege we have in loving them, nurturing them, shaping them, and preparing them to step out into the wide world. — David Jeremiah

Chess is, in essence, a game for children. Computers have exacerbated the trends towards youth because they now have an immensely powerful tool at their disposal and can absorb vast amounts of information extremely quickly. — Nigel Short

Mid the sharp, short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip at the end of its tube, blows out its great red bell,
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell. — Robert Browning

The smallest of the children fascinated Myron, and he watched them in amazement. They were like short drunk people, loud and usually dirty, but all were surprisingly cute and looked at him in much the same way that he looked at them. — Michael J. Sullivan

As he grew, the other children grew as well - all except poor Doroon, who seemed doomed to be short and skinny all his life. Rundorig — David Eddings

Although the sufferings of children are the worst, being inextinguishable
children themselves seldom have a proper sense of their own tragedy, discounting and keeping hidden the true horrors of their short lives, humbly imagining real calamity to be some prestigious drama of the grown-up world. [p. 13] — Shirley Hazzard

As adults we choose our own reading material. Depending on our moods and needs we might read the newspaper, a blockbuster novel, an academic article, a women's magazine, a comic, a children's book, or the latest book that just about everyone is reading. No one chastises us for our choice. No one says, 'That's too short for you to read.' No one says, 'That's too easy for you, put it back.' No one says 'You couldn't read that if you tried
it's much too difficult.'
Yet if we take a peek into classrooms, libraries, and bookshops we will notice that children's choices are often mocked, censured, and denied as valid by idiotic, interfering teachers, librarians, and parents. Choice is a personal matter that changes with experience, changes with mood, and changes with need. We should let it be. — Mem Fox

One of the best things about my job is that I get to meet a lot of great children's and YA authors at events all over the country. So I figured it might be fun to interview some of them and turn the interviews into short online comics. — Steve Sheinkin

I think we are not yet well aware that, unfortunately, we have a short time to be moms. This is not to suggest that we should rush to have children or do it in a crazy way. I think that's the most important decision of a woman's life. — Monica Cruz

Fashion as we used to know it doesn't exist. The dress as we know it today-it's dead. The dress has become so short it's really a tunic worn with leggings ... Fashion is fantasy, it's a child's game ... Now I'm going to be this, and then I'm going to be something else. — Rudi Gernreich

The suggestion that liberals aren't moralizers is so preposterous it makes it hard for me to take any of them seriously when they wax indignant about "moralizers." Almost every day, they tell us what is moral or immoral to think and to say about race, taxes, abortion - you name it. They explain it would be immoral for me to spend more of my own money on my own children when that money could be spent by government on other people's children. In short, they think moralizing is fine. They just want to have a monopoly on the franchise. — Jonah Goldberg

She was mined for the children
in her, one daughter, then another,
a short seam, quick to clay,
and not a single son to save them. — Robert Wrigley

Some television programs are made very attractive to young children by presenting short, rapidly moving sequences and ever-changing episodes ... Some experts now argue that slower- paced television fare that allows children time to think about the material is more valuable than the faster-paced programs that merely capture their attention. — Sandra Scarr

Fully aware that life is too short for the choice to be anything but irreparable, he had been distressed to discover that he felt no spontaneous attraction to any occupation. Rather sceptically, he looked over the array of available possibilities: prosecutors, who spend their whole lives persecuting people; schoolteachers, the butt of rowdy children; science and technology, whose advances bring enormous harm along with a small benefit; the sophisticated, empty chatter of the social sciences; interior design (which appealed to him because of his memories of his cabinetmaker grandfather), utterly enslaved by fashions he detested; the occupation of the poor pharmacists now reduced to peddlars of boxes and bottles. When he wondered; what should I choose for my whole life's work? his inner self would fall into the most uncomfortable silence. — Milan Kundera

In the mind of a woman, to give birth to a child is the short cut to omniscience. — Gelett Burgess

Children's literature is considerably more functional than a good portion of adult literature. If I were cynical, I might say: Children's books are written to be read; adult books are written to be talked about at cocktail parties.
There may be more truth that cynicism in that statement. My impression is that many adult books are written only to shock the reader (a short term goal, since shock quickly turns into boredom) or as calisthenics for the author's ego.
On the other hand, children's literature seems an area where books function as they were meant to; where they amaze, delight, and move our emotions. We can respect and admire any number of current adult books, but I find it hard to love them. — Lloyd Alexander

I was a reader before I was a writer, and when I started putting together my first collection of short stories, Fairytales For Lost Children, I drew on my rich history as a reader to try and create my voice. I wanted this voice to reflect my Somali background, my Kenyan upbringing and my London home. This voice would be a mashup of all the elements that formed my youth; the sticky-sweet Jamaican patois, the Kenyan street slang, my Somali and Italian linguistic tics, my love of jazz poetics and nineties hip-hop slanguistics. This language would form the bed on which my narratives of love, loss, identity and hope would rest. — Diriye Osman

with parenting there's a long game and a short game. The aim of the short game is to make your children bearable to live with. Easy to transport. Well behaved in public places. In other words, to make your own life easier. And, yes, you can achieve that with punishments, with discipline, with a clip here and there. But the aim of the long game is to produce a good human being. — Lisa Jewell

In short, my vision of a responsible free society is one in which we discourage evil, but do not prohibit it. We make our children and students aware of the consequences of drug abuse and other forms of irresponsible behavior. But after all our persuading, if they still want to use harmful drugs, that is their privilege. In a free society, individuals must have the right to do right or wrong, as long as they don't threaten or infringe upon the rights or property of others. They must also suffer the consequences of their actions, as it is from consequences that they learn to choose properly — Mark Skousen

I believe that mothers should tell the truth, even - no, especially - when the truth is difficult. It's always easier, and in the short term can even feel right, to pretend everything is okay, and to encourage your children to do the same. But concealment leads to shame, and of all hurts shame is the most painful. — Ayelet Waldman

In that time and by God's will there died my mother, who was a great hindrance unto me in following the way of God; my husband died likewise, and in a short time there also died all my children. And because I had commenced to follow the aforesaid way and had prayed God that He would rid me of them, I had great consolation of their deaths, albeit I did also feel some grief. — Angela Of Foligno

Abuse manipulates and twists a child's natural sense of trust and love. Her innocent feelings are belittled or mocked and she learns to ignore her feelings. She can't afford to feel the full range of feelings in her body while she's being abused - pain, outrage, hate, vengeance, confusion, arousal. So she short-circuits them and goes numb. For many children, any expression of feelings, even a single tear, is cause for more severe abuse. Again, the only recourse is to shut down. Feelings go underground. — Laura Davis

Life is simply too short to think about everything you put in your mouth, and it's not good for children to see you picking over bits of salad. — Keeley Hawes

I'm not romancing. I'm talking about the inevitable time when, unless we do something to stop it, men will be hunting men through the ruins, for food. We're letting it drift towards that, with an evil irresponsibility, because with our ordinary short lives we shan't be here to see it. Does our generation care about the misery it is bequeathing? Not it. "That's their worry," we say. "Damn our children's children; we're all right. — John Wyndham

Being nearly four years old, she was certainly a child: and children are human (if one allows the term "human" a wide sense): but she had not altogether ceased to be a baby: and babies are of course not human
they are animals, and have a very ancient and ramified culture, as cats have, and fishes, and even snakes: the same in kind as these, but much more complicated and vivid, since babies are, after all, one of the most developed species of the lower vertebrates.
In short, babies have minds which work in terms and categories of their own which cannot be translated into the terms and categories of the human mind.
It is true that they look human
but not so human, to be quite fair, as many monkeys.
Subconsciously, too, every one recognizes they are animals
why else do people always laugh when a baby does some action resembling the human, as they would at a praying mantis? If the baby was only a less-developed man, there would be nothing funny in it, surely. — Richard Hughes

Of little use, the man you may suppose,
Who says in verse what others say in prose;
Yet let me show a poet's of some weight,
And (though no soldier) useful to the state,
What will a child learn sooner than a song?
What better teach a foreigner the tongue?
What's long or short, each accent where to place
And speak in public with some sort of grace? — Alexander Pope

Having children is not an act of God. It's not like you're walking down the street and pregnancy strikes you; children are a result of a conscious decision. For the most part, female-headed households are the result of short-sighted, self-destructive behavior of one or two people. — Walter E. Williams

Good Bones

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I've shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I'll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that's a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful. — Maggie Smith

Touch is the most fundamental sense. A baby experiences it, all over, before he is born and long before he learns to use sight, hearing, or taste, and no human ever ceases to need it. Keep your children short on pocket money but long on hugs — Robert A. Heinlein

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

She remembered the way the damp, coarse sand had clumped to her legs and hands, and burrowed beneath her nails and into the folds of her clothes, and she had wondered why the British children in her storybooks were always excited about going to the beach - just as now she wondered why the light from the lighthouse seemed to be coming from the landward side of the expressway. "I thought a lighthouse is out at sea. — Yu-Mei Balasingamchow

Of all human activities, apart from the procreation of children, gardening is the most optimistic and hopeful. The gardener is by definition one who plans for and believes and trusts in a future, whether in the short or the longer term. — Susan Hill

All that befell: in her joys, her pipe in the evening, her man at night, the children she suckled, and guided on their first short steps; and in her tribulations, death, and parting, and the lash, she did not forget that deliverance was promised and would surely come. She had only to endure and trust in God. — James Baldwin

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

We hear much of special interest groups. Well, our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we're sick - professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, "We the people," this breed called Americans. — Ronald Reagan

I wasn't used to children and they were getting on my nerves. Worse, it appeared that I was a child, too. I hadn't known that before; I thought I was just short. — Florence King

Oh no, princess. I would never carry out anything which could harm your being. This was just something I was told to say. I'm not sure what is planned, if, you go against their wishes. But, I'm sure you're smart and won't test them. — Chayada Welljaipet

I had written a book of short stories which was published under the title of "Uncle Tom's Children". When the review of that book began to appear, I realized that I had made an awful naive mistake. I found that I had written a book which even bankers' daughters could read and weep over and feel good about. I swore to myself that if I ever wrote another book, no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears. — Richard Wright

He sank more and more into apathy; little interested him apart from dolls and other children's toys. He still spoke occasionally, but mainly to produce stock sentences in the style of a brainwashed schoolboy. Franziska made a record of some of them: 'I translated much'. 'I lived in a good place called Naumburg'. 'I swam in the Saale'. 'I was very fine because I lived in a fine house'. 'I love Bismarck'. 'I don't like Friedrich Nietzsche'. It would be a mercy to think that he experienced at least a kind of vegetative contentment, but this seems not to have been the case. He suffered from his life-long curse of insomnia, and visitors downstairs were often disturbed by groans and howls coming from the upstairs bedroom. Towards the end of Franziska recorded him uttering 'More light!' (Goethe's dying words) and 'In short, dead!' suggesting that that is what he wanted to be. — Julian Young

The learned must educate the ignorant. Because, according to society, ignorance is never bliss. Except in retrospect. I look back upon my ignorance with the knowledge that I was much happier then than now. Consider this: children know precious little, but the profound ignorance comes from profound innocence. People really mean to say that innocence is bliss. And bliss is short-lived. — Nick Sagan

Rose sat all alone in the big best parlor, with her little handkerchief laid ready to catch the first tear, for she was thinking of her troubles, and a shower was expected. She had retired to this room as a good place in which to be miserable; for it was dark and still, full of ancient furniture, somber curtains, and hung all around with portraits of solemn old gentlemen in wigs, severe-nosed ladies in top-heavy caps, and staring children in little bobtailed coats or short-waisted frocks. It was an excellent place for woe; amd the fitful spring rain that pattered on the windowpane seemed to sob,Cry away; I'm with you. — Louisa May Alcott

Aunt Viney (short for 'Lavinia'), viewed in the grey daylight that came in through the dining-room window, was always a rather imposing spectacle. She was fifty-one years of age, and had large staring eyes, quick bustling movements, more than a tendency to stoutness, a menacing optimism that was not quite matched by a sense of humour, and the most decided opinions upon everything. She was an excellent 'manager', and for more than a decade had lived at the Manse with her sister and brother-in-law and their children (there had been boys at one time), looking after them all with undoubted if rather relentless competence. — James Hilton

You come to this place, mid-life. You don't know how you got here, but suddenly you're staring fifty in the face. When you turn and look back down the years, you glimpse the ghosts of other lives you might have led; all houses are haunted. The wraiths and phantoms creep under your carpets and between the warp and weft of fabric, they lurk in wardrobes and lie flat under drawer-liners. You think of the children you might have had but didn't. When the midwife says, 'It's a boy,' where does the girl go? When you think you're pregnant, and you're not, what happens to the child that has already formed in your mind? You keep it filed in a drawer of your consciousness, like a short story that never worked after the opening lines. — Hilary Mantel

It was fine," I said stiffly. "We played Mouse Trap." "Is that what they're calling it these days?" she asked, throwing me a terrible grin. "I have to go give Rachel a quick bath. Feel free to make yourself some cocoa or whatever you like!" She stopped short of adding " ... future child-bride of my only son. — Maureen Johnson

It was funny, in her old age, to look back and see for how short a period her nest had NOT been empty. Relatively speaking, it was nothing - empty far longer than full. so much of herself had been invested in those children; who could believe how briefly they'd been with her. — Anne Tyler

In England, I was quite struck to see how forward the girls are made
a child of 10 years old, will chat and keep you company, while her parents are busy or out etc.
with the ease of a woman of 26. But then, how does this education go on?
Not at all: it absolutely stops short. — Fanny Burney

Do not have your child's hair cut by a real hairdresser in a real hairdressing salon. He is, at this point, far too short to be exposed to contempt. — Fran Lebowitz

Parents - and teachers too - are woefully short-sighted when they try to protect the child from his mistakes, when they make the "right answer" more important than the quest for knowledge and good judgment. For what is not learned within one's self cannot be learned from another. — Sydney J. Harris

What is the song, the pop song? Is it a conduit to give out the feeling in a compact form, a short form? Shorter is better because it is physically much easier to share. A slogan verse a book, single versus record. What if it's blank white with really no cover? That leaves the meaning clear.
wait?
It's more vague.
With no hints to intentions.
Except that maybe the intention was to seem vague
or not to have a cover.
Maybe just there's no cover
And if the children cared then the children are pissed. You said you wanted pop but instead you got this....

— Brendan Fowler

Take your happiness where you find it, children, and don't ask too many questions. Life is too short and uncertain to do otherwise. — Jacqueline Carey

The imaginary child implied by the toys on exhibit in Hong Kong was impossible to reconcile with my actual child. I didn't think I'd like to meet the imaginary child they implied. That child was mad with contradictions. He was a machine-gun-toting, Chopin-playing psychopath with a sugar high and a short attention span. — Donovan Hohn

In between bites of banana, Mr. Remora would tell stories, and the children would write the stories down in notebooks, and every so often there would be a test. The stories were very short, and there were a whole lot of them on every conceivable subject. "One day I went to the store to purchase a carton of milk," Mr. Remora would say, chewing on a banana. "When I got home, I poured the milk into a glass and drank it. Then I watched television. The end." Or: "One afternoon a man named Edward got into a green truck and drove to a farm. The farm had geese and cows. The end." Mr. Ramora would tell story after story, and eat banana after banana, and it would get more and more difficult for Violet to pay attention. — Lemony Snicket

Dunce is completely bald and has a really pointed head so the temptation to get him paralytic on his thirtieth birthday, carry him to the tattooist's and get a nice big 'D' smack bang in the middle of his forehead was too much for me. Trouble is he can't afford to have it removed so he wears a big plaster over it. Gangs of children tease him.

'What's underneath the plaster, mister? Show us!'

They swear he has a third eye under there.

My name is Bill but Dunce calls me 'Fez' on account of my hat. I've known Dunce for over sixteen years. — Mike Russell

You're a Dark-Hunter."
He kissed her lightly on the lips. "What I am is a man in love with a woman. I want you, Amanda. For the rest of my blessedly short mortal life. I want to wake at dawn with you in my arms and watch our children play and fight. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

That is where we stand as a nation today. Twenty years ago, our society began regularly prescribing psychiatric drugs to children and adolescents, and now one out of every fifteen Americans enters adulthood with a "serious mental illness." That is proof of the most tragic sort that our drug-based paradigm of care is doing a great deal more harm than good. The medicating of children and youth became commonplace only a short time ago, and already it has put millions onto a path of lifelong illness. (246) — Robert Whitaker

As a rule, however fine and deep a phrase may be, it only affects the indifferent, and cannot fully satisfy those who are happy or unhappy; that is why dumbness is most often the highest expression of happiness or unhappiness; lovers understand each other better when they are silent, and a fervent, passionate speech delivered by the grave only touches outsiders, while to the widow and children of the dead man it seems cold and trivial. — Anton Chekhov

In short, the Enlightenment privatized marriage, taking it out of the public sphere, and redefined its purpose as individual gratification, not any 'broader good' such as reflecting God's nature, producing character, or raising children. Slowly but surely, this newer understanding of the meaning of marriage has displaced the older ones in Western culture. — Timothy Keller

This is no tall story. Nor is it a short story. Indeed, a story cannot be measured, for their realities stretch far beyond a page or one person's life. — Leah Broadby

If things went according to death notices, man would be absolutely perfect. There you find only first-class fathers, immaculate husbands, model children, unselfish and self-sacrificing mothers, grandparents mourned by all, businessmen in contrast with whom Francis of Assisi would seem an infinite egoist, generals dripping with kindness, humane prosecuting attorneys, almost holy munitions makers - in short, the earth seems to have been populated by a horde of wingless angels without one's having been aware of it. — Erich Maria Remarque

It needs more than ever to be stressed that the best and truest educators are parents under God. The greatest school is the family. In learning, no act of teaching in any school or university compares to the routine task of mothers in teaching a babe who speaks no language the mother tongue in so short a time. No other task in education is equal to this. The moral training of the children, the discipline of good habits, is an inheritance from the parents to the children which surpasses all other. The family is the first and basic school of man. — Rousas John Rushdoony

My aunt put my cousins into a children's modelling agency, then my mum did it with us. Me and my sister got a few TV adverts, which was good pocket money. A director saw photos of me and asked me to do a short film. — Sullivan Stapleton

Good teachers aren't simply born, they perfect their craft over time. Teachers need a chance to practice and improve, especially now as the American education system lags behind international standards. If education in the United States is to raise its standards, we need to nurture our teachers through a combination of accountability and development methods. Actionable advice: Don't discipline children too harshly. It's certainly tempting to punish or suspend children that behave badly. That might fix the problem in the short term, but it actually inhibits a child's overall learning. It's much more effective to solve conflicts through social problem solving. When children can engage with a problem in a safe environment, their behavior is more likely to change for the good. — Anonymous

Since freedom is not a fixed thing that can be grasped and held once for all, but a growth, any particular society, such as our own, always appears partly free and partly unfree. In so far as it favors, in every child, the development of his highest possibilities, it is free, but where it falls short of this it is not. — Charles Horton Cooley

The modern educational system teaches children how to obey authority. People are not being educated; they're being tested for levels of obedience. School is about memorizing what you are told short-term and repeating it. Children are taught that truth comes from authority, that intelligence is the ability to remember and repeat, that accurate memory and repetition are rewarded, that noncompliance is punished, and that they need to conform both intellectually and socially. The sad truth is, our educational system is flawed. It does not properly educate the people; it teaches them how to be good workers. — Joseph P. Kauffman

noticed a large digital screen on the wall facing what looked the common area, where people would gather for announcements. He saw numbers labeled on the buildings, and the buildings themselves, but he didn't see anything else. The transport stopped at Building One, and the driver simply, and in a somewhat harsh tone, said, "Out!" The children scrambled to get out of the transport, and as the last one barely made it off, the transport drove away, presumably being driven back to the registration area. They began to enter the building, when they were greeted by an adult woman. The children thought she looked mean and angry, and the teens thought she was built like a bodybuilder, but looked and sounded like a man with her short butch haircut and somewhat deep voice. — Cliff Ball

Nothing in life is yours to keep - not your children, not your friends and family, not your lover, not your material possessions, not your youth and vitality, not your struggles (which is great news) or successes, not your body and not even your life. Everything in life is given to you for a short period of time, to enjoy, to learn from, to appreciate and to love, but never to keep. — Luminita D. Saviuc

'Who was your mother?' 'Never had none!' said the child, with another grin. 'Never had any mother? What do you mean? Where were you born?' 'Never was born!' 'Do you know who made you?' 'Nobody, as I knows on,' said the child, with a short laugh ... 'I 'spect I grow'd.' — Harriet Beecher Stowe