Obvious Child Quotes & Sayings

Because adoption meets the needs of children so successfully, and because there have long been waiting lists of couples hoping to adopt babies and children, it would seem that the solution for abused or neglected kids was obvious. But not to the do-gooders. To remove a child from an abusive parent, sever the parent's parental rights, and permit the child to be adopted by a couple who would give the child a loving home began to seem too 'judgmental.' — Mona Charen

It's strange: I've done so many things up until I did 'Obvious Child,' including writing children's books and making 'Marcel the Shell.' To me, the through-line is incredibly clear: it all comes from wanting to be connected to my own inner voice and not wanting to be on somebody else's agenda if that means that I can't be myself. — Jenny Slate

Fairytales teach children that the world is fraught with danger, including life-threatening danger; but by being clever (always), honest (as a rule, but with common-sense exceptions), courteous (especially to the elderly, no matter their apparent social station), and kind (to anyone in obvious need), even a child can succeed where those who seem more qualified have failed.
And this precisely what children most need to hear.
To let them go on believing that the world is safe, that they will be provided for and achieve worthwhile things even if they remain stupid, shirk integrity, despise courtesy, and act only from self-interest, that they ought to rely on those stronger, smarter, and more able to solve their problems, would be the gravest disservice: to them, and to society as a whole.
-On the Supposed Unsuitability of Fairytales for Children — J. Aleksandr Wootton

I am reading a terrible sententious book called The Wedding of Herbert Mimnaugh. Firstly, what sort of a name is Herbert and why would a parent with any trace of natural affection wish to afflict their child with such a name? Herbert's parents do not feature prominently in the book when this choice alone makes it obvious that they are the most interesting people in it. — Zen Cho

Van Houten was still staring at the ceiling beams. He took a drink. The glass was almost empty again. 'Lidewij, I can't do it. I can't. I can't.' He leveled his gaze to me. 'Nothing happens to the Dutch Tulip Man. He isn't a con man or not a con man; he's God. He's an obvious and unambiguous metaphorical representation of God, and asking what becomes of him if the intellectual equivalent of asking what becomes of the disembodied eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg in Gatsby. Do he and Anna's man get married? We are speaking of a novel, dear child, not some historical enterprise. — John Green

That you are young," the cat said. "And less wise than one who is old. I am wiser than you, and I say you should go. It is obvious. You should trust a wiser head than your own." "You aren't any older than I am," she countered. "I am cat," Rowl said smugly, "which means I have made better use of my time." "Oh, you're impossible," Bridget said. "Yes. Cat." Rowl rose and flowed down onto the floor. He turned to face her, curling his tail around his paws. "Why do you wish to dishonor and humiliate Wordkeeper? Would you change his name?" "No, of course not," Bridget said. "But I'm just . . . I'm not like him." "No," Rowl said. "That is what growing up is for." "I am not a child," she said. The cat looked around speculatively and then turned back to her. "Rather than do your duty, you are hiding in the darkest corner of the darkest room in your home. This is very wise. Very mature. — Jim Butcher

Children with social challenges are sometimes described as lacking empathy. This is usually not the case. Instead, the child is struggling with perspective taking, which makes empathy difficult. If they could understand the perspectives and emotional status of others, they would empathize. Indeed, many quirky children empathize quite well with others, provided that the other person is experiencing a strong, obvious emotion that can be easily understood (sad, angry, happy). It — Mark Bowers

And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on good days, for falling in love. — Nicholas Sparks

People say a lie is just a lie, but I say why deny the obvious child. — Paul Simon

What writing teaches me, over and over, is that God is waiting to be found everywhere, in the darkest corners of our lives, the dead ends and bad neighborhoods we wake up in, and in the simplest, lightest, most singular and luminous moments. He's hiding, like a child, in quite obvious and visible places, because he wants to be found. The miracle is that he dwells in both. — Shauna Niequist

Adults ... struggle desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conform to the rules of everyday life. Adults foolishly demand to know how Superman can possibly fly, or how Batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night, when the answer is obvious even to the smallest child: because it's not real. — Grant Morrison

Those who see what's obvious aren't necessarily brighter than others. They're just more likely to observe that the emperor is naked. Like children, they see what's actually there. Their perceptions are less clouded by belief systems, taboos, habits of thought. One responsibility of management
an important one
is to call attention to the invisible obvious, pointing it out as a child does (sometimes to the embarrassment of adults). Doing so also requires supporting employees who take that risk, too, and other risks as well. — Richard Farson

Linton did not appear to remember what she talked of and he had evidently great difficulty in sustaining any kind of conversation. His lack of interest in the subjects she started, and his equal incapacity to contribute to her entertainment, were so obvious that she could not conceal her disappointment. An indefinite alteration had come over his whole person and manner. The pettishness that might be caressed into fondness, had yielded to a listless apathy; there was less of the peevish temper of a child which frets and teases on purpose to be soothed, and more of the self-absorbed moroseness of a confirmed invalid, repelling consolation, and ready to regard the good-humoured mirth of others as an insult. Catherine perceived, as well as I did, that he held it rather a punishment, than a gratification, to endure our company. — Emily Bronte

IN MOST FAMILIES, there is a favorite child. Parents deny it and maybe they truly don't see it, but it's obvious to the children. Unfairness bothers children greatly. It's hard to always come in second. — Karen Joy Fowler

The importance of local governance may not be obvious to an America accustomed to treating city and state downfalls with doses of federal comeuppance. Sometimes there's a reason for that - the Civil War. More often, all reasoning seems absent - No Child Left Behind. — P. J. O'Rourke

Another cardinal rule of thinking like a child: don't be afraid of the obvious. — Steven D. Levitt

The question is still asked of women: 'How do you propose to answer the need for child care?' That is an obvious attempt to structure conflict in the old terms. The questions are rather: 'If we as a human community want children, how does the total society propose to provide for them?'. — Jean Baker Miller

Come on. We've just time to find you a doll before the shops close.'
Rose sat up directly. 'But the ribbon broke on my right slipper and Mrs. Stella said I can't go outside until I have new shoes.'
...
He stood, and she looked up at him. She did not hold out her arms, but it seemed he was expected to pick her up.
'Didn't you announce that you don't like to be carried?'
'I make exceptions when I am ill shod.'
The child stared back at Thorn as if there was nothing odd about her speech. He gathered her up into his arms and remarked, 'At least you smell better now.'
He glanced down in time to see cool gray eyes narrow.
'So do you,' she said.
Thorn stared down at her. Had she? Yes, she had. 'That was not a polite comment,' he told her.
She looked off, into the corner of the bedchamber, but her implication was obvious: *he* had been impolite to point out her former odor. — Eloisa James

The fact is that child rearing is a long, hard job, the rewards are not always immediately obvious, the work is undervalued, and parents are just as human and almost as vulnerable as their children. — Benjamin Spock

Allow me to presume upon this new friendship of ours by telling you that denying your fiance your company in order to gain whatever it is you want, is not only foolish but risky. It was obvious to me that his grace has a great affection for you, and I truly think he would give you anything you want if you simply gave him that lovely smile of yours and asked him for it. Deceit and deviousness do you no credit, my child, and what's more, they will get you absolutely nowhere with the duke. He has known females far more skilled in deception and trickery than you, and all those ladies ever got from him was the opportunity to amuse him for a very brief time. While you, by being direct and forthright as I sense that you are, have gained the very thing those other females most desired. You have gained the offer of his grace's hand in marriage.
-Dr. Whitticomb — Judith McNaught

One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child. — Randall Jarrell

The creature which stood before me was no bigger than a child, yet I would have sworn she was wood nymph. With pointed ears, translucent skin and a halo of woodland flowers in her silvery hair, the small woman held a strange presence. Besides the creature's obvious beauty, I couldn't draw my gaze away from her magnificent opaque wings. They fluttered in the breeze like the leaves above us. — Freedom Matthews

We have an opportunity to focus global attention on what should be obvious: every mother, and every child, counts. They count because we value every human life. The evidence is clear that healthy mothers and children are the bedrock of healthy and prosperous communities and nations. — Lee Jong-wook

It's hard to dismiss the obvious symmetry between Longo [Evan Longoria] and the franchise for which he's now the poster-child: for the player, Hondo Junior College to MLB All-Star ... for the team, worst to first. — Tucker Elliot

The habit of generalizing from one particular, that mainstay of the cheap and obvious essayist, has rooted many fictions in the public eye. Nothing, for example can blot from my memory the profound, searching, and exhaustive analysis of a great nation which I learned in my small geography when I was a child, namely, 'The French are a gay and polite people fond of dancing and light wines. — Kate Douglas Wiggin

Vera had not sensed my approach. She was peering into the instrument and turning knobs with child-like seriousness and ineptitude. It was obvious that she had never used a microscope before.
I stole closer to her, and then I said, "Boo!"
She jerked her head away from the eyepiece.
"Hello," I said.
"You scared me to death," she said.
"Sorry," I said, and I laughed.
These ancient games go on and on. It's nice they do. — Kurt Vonnegut

Another part of the ritual was to ascend with closed eyes. 'Step, step, step,' came my mother's voice as she led me up - and sure enough, the surface of the next tread would receive the blind child's confident foot; all one had to do was lift it a little higher than usual, so as to avoid stubbing one's toe against the riser. This slow, somewhat somnambulistic ascension in self-engendered darkness held obvious delights. The keenest of them was not knowing when the last step would come. At the top of the stairs, one's foot would be automatically lifted to the deceptive call of 'Step,' and then, with a momentary sense of exquisite panic, with a wild contraction of muscles, would sink into the phantasm of a step, padded, as it were, with the infinitely elastic stuff of its own nonexistence. — Vladimir Nabokov

I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply
a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day
should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to
animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing
breezes cannot be bettered. — Nicholas Sparks

What the devil is 'wordsharing'? Does the word for 'speak' mean 'listen' just as well? If I said, 'Listen to me!' you might talk, instead."

"What use is the one without the other? It took me a long time to see this distinction in Valan speech."

Spinel thought over the list of 'share forms': learnsharing, worksharing, lovesharing. "Do you say 'hitsharing,' too? If I hit a rock with a chisel, does the rock hit me?"

"I would think so. Don't you feel it in your arm?"

He frowned and sought a better example; it was so obvious, it was impossible to explain. "I've got it: if Beryl bears a child, does the child bear Beryl? That's ridiculous."

"A mother is born when her child comes."

"Or if I swim in the sea, does the sea swim in me?"

"Does it not?"

Helplessly he thought, She can't be that crazy. "Please, you do know the difference, don't you?"

"Of course. What does it matter? — Joan Slonczewski

If you give a five thousand dollar diamond ring to a two year old child, sooner or later, that child is going to lose the treasure. Even though you could have meant well, yet the child would misplace the diamond. It is obvious because that child doesn't know the value of a diamond ring. — Sunday Adelaja

In the Russian Orthodox Church there is the concept of the Holy Fool. It means someone who is a fool to the ways of the world, but wise to the ways of God. I think that Ted, from the moment he saw the baby, knew that he could not possibly be the father ... Perhaps he saw in that moment that if he so much as questioned the baby's fatherhood, it would mean humiliation for the child and might jeopardize his entire future ... Perhaps he understood that he could not reasonably expect an independent and energetic spirit like Winnie to find him sexually exciting and fulfilling.
... And so he decided upon the most unexpected, and yet the simplest course of all. He chose to be such a Fool that he couldn't see the obvious. — Jennifer Worth

Rachel's the first one to speak. "So - he told you."
"Told me what?"
"Come on, Hal. What's changed since yesterday?" Rachel sneaks one arm out of her jacket cocoon to give Hallelujah a soft punch in the shoulder. "I may not be at my best right now, but I'm not blind." She pauses. "Or deaf."
Hallelujah feels her face get hot. "Oh. What did you hear?"
"Bits and pieces. I was really out of it last night, after . . . whatever that was. After almost freezing to death." Rachel shudders. "I have to say, it was totally obvious from the get-go that Jonah liked you."
"It was?" Hallelujah is still surprised. She still doesn't quite believe it.
"Um, yeah. Or did you think he's out here for me?" Rachel says slowly, as if to a child, "You followed me. He followed you. — Kathryn Holmes

Autistic children often show no real fears of danger despite obvious risks of harm. This may be easy to spot in a young child who bolts for the street at a moment's notice, or plunges into water with no fear of its depth without being able to swim. But what does it look like in an older child, one on the cusp of adolescence? — Jeannie Davide-Rivera

It was easy to run around barefoot in oblivion in Costa Rica. But once I gave birth to my child, I didn't want to be oblivious to the obvious. — Carolyn Murphy

When I love, I love with everything within me."
Seeing him with his child, this was obvious. Did he mean ... yes, he meant exactly what he said, and it was like he wanted her to know it went much deeper than only with his child. That whatever he loved, he loved with everything inside of him. "I sense that about you, Tristan. Your actions and words are heartfelt. — Mary J. McCoy-Dressel

She brushed the tears from their faces and sang them a melancholy lullaby. Her obvious devotion to her daughters pulled at my heart strings, making my chest ache with longing for my own mother. — A.B. Shepherd

It seems obvious now: the child who spends school days in a fog of semi-comprehension has no way to know her problem is not that she is slow-witted. — Sonia Sotomayor

'Obvious Child,' the short, had a nice life online and a great festival run, but the short and the feature still stand apart from everything else I've done. I play a woman who you might meet in life. My other work is much more heightened. — Jenny Slate

Narcissus knew only too well what a charming golden bird had flown to him. This hermit soon sensed a kindred soul in Goldmund, in spite of their apparent contrasts. Narcissus was dark and spare; Goldmund, a radiant youth. Narcissus was analytical, a thinker; Goldmund, a dreamer with the soul of a child. But something they had in common bridged these contrasts: both were refined; both were different from the others because of obvious gifts and signs; both bore the special mark of fate. — Hermann Hesse

The obvious liberal rejoinders come to mind: What about the child whose home is hit by a bomb? Did she have some bomb-shaped thoughtform that brought ruin down on her head? And did my [fired white-collar workers] boot-camp mates cause the layoffs that drove them out of their jobs by "vibrating" at a layoff-related frequency? It seems inexcusably cruel to tell people who have reach some kind of personal nadir that their probem is entirely of their own making ... — Barbara Ehrenreich

If I have this child? Why wasn't it obvious to me that I already had a child, who was growing inside of me? Once you are pregnant, there is no if. That child, though tiny and in an early stage of development, already exists! — Abby Johnson

And after the briefest flowering of understanding, my own generation had grown complacent. At some level, we must have started taking it for granted that the way the universe worked was now obvious to any child ... even though it went against everything innate to the species: the wild, undisciplined love of patterns, the craving to extract meaning and comfort from everything in sight.
We thought we were passing on everything that mattered to our children: science, history, literature,
art. Vast libraries of information lay at their fingertips. But we hadn't fought hard enough to pass on
the hardest-won truth of all: Morality comes only from within. Meaning comes only from within. Outside our own skulls, the universe is indifferent. — Greg Egan

Doesn't it take your breath away for a moment to hear God say, "I love you"? To which we, in our sinfulness, must certainly respond, "Why?" And then to hear him answer, "Because you're my child." To which we ask the obvious question, "Why would I, a hopeless sinner, now be called your cherished child?" Only to hear him say, "Because I wanted you, and I came to get you so that you might know me as Father. — David Platt

Standing up through the Citroen's open sunroof, my six-foot-three-inch, red-cheeked sister pointed a long, trembling finger at the perpetrator and with maximum indignation yelled: 'Ce merde-monsieur a justement crache dans ma derriere!' Her intended meaning is obvious, but what she said was, 'This shit-man just spat out into my butt! — Julia Child

Twenty-one years ago, when I first heard Mia Farrow had accused me of child molestation, I found the idea so ludicrous I didn't give it a second thought. We were involved in a terribly acrimonious breakup, with great enmity between us and a custody battle slowly gathering energy. The self-serving transparency of her malevolence seemed so obvious I didn't even hire a lawyer to defend myself. It was my show business attorney who told me she was bringing the accusation to the police and I would need a criminal lawyer. — Woody Allen

Two men, I think. A driver and a passenger." Reacher didn't want to turn around to look. Didn't want to show either guy the pale flash of a concerned face in the rear window. So he hunched down a little and moved sideways until he could see the image in Chang's door mirror. A pick-up truck, about a hundred yards back. A Ford, he thought. A serious machine, big and obvious, keeping pace. It was dull red, like the general store. There were two guys in it, side by side, but far from each other, because of the vehicle's extravagant width. — Lee Child

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

In a profound sense every man has two halves to his being; he is not one person so much as two persons trying to act in unison. I believe that in the heart of each human being there is something which I can only describe as a child of darkness who is equal and complementary to the more obvious child of light. — Laurens Van Der Post

When given age-appropriate challenges, children tend to take them very seriously; in fact, the more obvious the risk is, the more cautiously a child will proceed. — Darell Hammond

I think my books come out very visual, which is an obvious consequence. — Lee Child

How can anyone think so insanely that the human life has the same value and mankind, the same morality, independent of numbers? It is lucid to me that everytime a new child is born, the value of every human in world decreases slightly. It is obvious to me that the morality of the population explosion is wholly unlike than when man was a sparse, noble species in its beginning. — Pentti Linkola

Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements. — Maria Montessori

As a bubble you cannot change the world, this is obvious, but you can still make a child happy! Even the most worthless things can achieve very noteworthy things! — Mehmet Murat Ildan