Quotes & Sayings About Playgrounds

it's hard enough separating the good stuff from the bullshit without adding to the whole mess by wanting to know what you ain't gonna know. — Jim Dodge

Our country's growing obsession with organized sports isn't just hurting our children, but also our communities. As play is siphoned off to gyms and fields, fewer kids are playing in our streets, parks, and playgrounds. — Darell Hammond

After visiting several of America's most fashionable playgrounds, I have reached the conclusion that men who work hard enjoy life most. The men at such places can be divided into two classes, first, busy men of affairs ... and, second, rich loafers. I was impressed by the obvious enjoyment corporation heads and other important executives were deriving from their vacation activities ... The idle rich fellows, on the other hand, although indulging in exactly the same activities, palpably were bored. — B.C. Forbes

I spent a lot of time bowling as a kid, mostly because I grew up in bowling alleys. They were kind of my playgrounds. — Chris Hardwick

it sucks to get old...but there's always beer — James Rollins

While visiting Costa Rica, I was inspired to hear that someone had donated a playground to a local school. So when I returned to L.A., one day I just called the principal of a nearby elementary school and asked what I could do. Five years later, I've helped make over nine schools, repainting, renovating, and fixing up playgrounds. — Cheryl Hines

Don't start talkin about books or quotin poems at them. these is good folks but they ain't real crazy about readin books. just do what i do and you'll be all right. — William Gay

you just had to be still and have faith, that was the main thing. — Jim Dodge

A reformer is a man who sees the world's superficial ills and sets out to cure them by aggravating the more basic ills. — Fernando Pessoa

Babies don't know anything but nipples and lullabies. they splash out looks of wonder on anybody whether they merit it or not. — Daniel Woodrell

If one wishes to see a cat badly enough, one will doubtless see one. — David Markson

There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The "negroes" of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours. — Pat Buchanan

The sport to which I owe so much has undergone profound changes, but it's still baseball. Kids still imitate their heroes on playgrounds. Fans still ruin expensive suits going after foul balls that cost five dollars. Hitting streaks still make the network news and hot dogs still taste better at the ballpark than at home. — Duke Snider

How was life before Pop-Tarts, Prozac and padded playgrounds? They ate strudel, took opium and played on the grass. — Jennifer Michael Hecht

mead for my men! — Donald Barthelme

god, they say, is love. and some one's got to pass the word. — Richard Farina

I'd hate to read all these books ... that much reading could put your eyes out. — Larry McMurtry

A wife's faithful to her husband, subject to him. It's in the bible. — Elmore Leonard

The enemy you flee is not exterior to yourself — John Barth

what i really need is a dead man. — Chester Himes

Make yourself invisible, or get busy with something. — Robert Walser

Just as playgrounds didn't even make the priority list of most of those responding to Katrina, they all too often slip off the radar of those building our schools, designing our neighborhoods, and drafting government budgets. — Darell Hammond

We must examine the ways in which we have attempted to turn our own ministries, workplaces, and mission fields into the playgrounds of our own personal struggles. We must search our hearts for the ways in which our own insecurities and wounded egos sabotage the gospel message that we have been entrusted with. We must become leaders who are deep in a society of the spectacle that produces shallowness. — Mark Sayers

All over the world ... the past was being wiped out by condominiums. — Elmore Leonard

The only way to solve the traffic problems of the country is to pass a law that only paid-for cars are allowed to use the highways. That would make traffic so scarce, we could use our boulevards for children's playgrounds. — Will Rogers

Empires come and go, but playgrounds last forever. — Paul Tayyar

All our institutions rest upon business. Without it we should not have schools, colleges, churches, parks, playgrounds, pavements, books, libraries, art, music, or anything else that we value. — Charles Gates Jr.

Driving home I see the playground but it's all wrong, the swings are on the opposite side. "Oh, Jack, that's a different one," says Grandma. There's playgrounds in every town." Lots of the world seems to be a repeat. — Emma Donoghue

I was an exceptionally freaked-out child. My earliest memories are of fear, as are pretty much all the memories that come after my earliest memories.
Growing up, I was afraid not only of all the commonly recognized and legitimate childhood dangers: the dark, strangers, the deep end of the swimming pool, but I was also afraid of an extensive list of completely benign things: snow, perfectly nice babysitters, cars, playgrounds, stairs, Sesame Street, the telephone, board games, the grocery store, sharp blades of grass, any new situation whatsoever, anything that dared to move, etc., etc., etc. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Alternate the theories you entertain about all things. — Padgett Powell

Studies of children in playgrounds with both green areas and manufactured play areas found that children engaged in more creative forms of play in the green areas. — Richard Louv

Avoid retirement playgrounds like poison, because that's exactly what they are. — Linda Goodman

Everybody he knew was going quietly mad from being tied on a leash that was too short. — Harry Crews

MADE FOR TELEVISION. — John Irving

Atlanta, Georgia - a city where little girls in $50 smocked dresses romp around on filthy playgrounds. Where every freshly birthed Southern baby gets two names and women wear pastel pantsuits to lunch. These ladies instinctively understand closed-toed shoes and slips and no-white-after-Labor-Day-unless-it-is-winter-white. — Jen Hatmaker

Family life was wonderful. The streets were bleak. The playgrounds were bleak. But home was always warm. My mother and father had a great relationship. I always felt 'safe' there. — Robert Cormier

My folks wouldn't read a book if you put a gun to their dicks. but they read people all day long and always get it right. — Pat Conroy

Playgrounds are essentially machines to induce Newtonian physics on our own bodies. — Jake Barton

All I know, is that I feel extremely blessed to be on TV. It's a hard job, but real life is harder. Truth be told, playgrounds can be war zones. — Atticus Shaffer

If you think you see no slaves in pennsylvania," replies capt. zhang, his face as smooth as suet, "why, look again. they are not all african, nor do some of them even yet know,
may never know,
that they are slaves. slavery is very old upon these shores,
there is no innocence upon the practice anywhere, neither among the indians nor the spanish nor in the behavior of the rest of christendom, if it come to that. — Thomas Pynchon

So it's really not true, after all, that the government has spared children from toil and instead lets them romp on the playgrounds. No, the government instead buses them into mass worker-training programs and is very resentful indeed when parents try to opt out of this arrangement, as in homeschooling. — Robert P. Murphy

play has become too domesticated and regimented while playgrounds themselves have become more and more barren. May today are devoid of vegetation with which to form nests, shelters, wands, dolls, or other playthings...These concerns are best explored in a heterogeneous habitat, where several secret niches are harbored, the kinds that can no longer be found on prefabricated metal and plastic jungle gym. — Gary Paul Nabhan

In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time ... I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well ... I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter all over the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit. — Emma Donoghue

my foolishness had me believe that i was the story, and this bleak cold night merely its setting, but in fact my real story played itself out almost independently of me or, more precisely, occurred parallel to my own little adventures. — Peter Nadas

we mistake induction for generation. — Richard Farina

most reviews are written by morons about morons. sensibility is at a premium in american culture these days. — Jim Dodge

The sniper puts the cellist in his sights. Arrow is about to send a bullet into him, but stops. His finger isn't on the trigger ... His hand isn't even in the vicinity of the trigger ... His head leans back slightly, and she sees that his eyes are closed, that he is no longer looking through his scope. She knows what he's doing. It's very clear to her, unmistakable. He's listening to the music. And then Arrow knows why he didn't fire yesterday ... She is at once, sure of two things. The first is that she does not want to kill this man, and the second is that she must. Time is running out. There's no reason not to kill him. A sniper of his ability has wihtout doubt killed dozens, if not hundreds. Not just soldiers. Women crossing streets. Children in playgrounds. Old men in water lines. She knows this to a certainity. Yet she doesn't want to pull her trigger. All because she can see that he doesn't want to pull his ... The final notes of the cellist's melody reach him, and he smiles. — Steven Galloway

When you're really cute that's all you have to be, you make a career out of it. someone asks you what you do, you say, 'nothing. i'm cute. — Elmore Leonard

The world is a playground -Indian — Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

It's that moon again, slung so fat and low in the tropical night, calling out across a curdled sky and into the quivering ears of that dear old voice in the shadows, the Dark Passenger, nestled snug in the backseat of the Dodge K-car of Dexter's hypothetical soul.
That rascal moon, that loudmouthed leering Lucifer, calling down across the empty sky to the dark hearts of the night monsters below, calling them away to their joyful playgrounds. — Jeff Lindsay

i ain't got the energy to argue. i'm an old man and i got to take a shit. — Johnny Shaw

At KaBOOM! we are crowd-sourcing a nationwide Map of Play that uses GIS data and user rankings to identify where the engaging playgrounds are located, but more importantly, where they are not. — Darell Hammond

People are complicated; you can't label 'em with a word. — Fredric Brown

Child welfare ought really to cover all sorts of topics, such as better water and sanitation and good roads, and clean streets and public parks and playgrounds. — Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Mammoth is an incredible community and world-class attraction, ... Were committed to creating a vibrant living experience that matches the natural, majestic beauty of the area. 80/50 Mammoth will make the new Village at Mammoth one of the hottest year-round playgrounds in North America. For the first time, Mammoth will be a place where outdoor enthusiasts can experience the unparalleled amenities and services of a five-star resort hotel combined with privileges of owning a prestigious second home. — Puff Daddy

As public schools deteriorate, the upper-middle class and wealthy send their kids to private ones. As public pools and playgrounds decay, the better-off buy memberships in private tennis and swimming clubs. As public hospitals decline, the well-off pay premium rates for private care. — Robert Reich

Thinking, when you first try it, is very difficult. — Charles Willeford

they are mystified by certain instances. — William Carlos Williams

there's nothing worse on this earth than privileged bureaucratic assholes who work the system. they never get caught, and if they do, there are no real consequences. — C.J. Box

As parents, we need to send our kids back to 'old-fashioned' outdoor summer camps, which have been on the decline as the demand for sports and academics-based camps has risen. We need to fight budget cuts to public parks programs and resist closures of public swimming pools and playgrounds. — Darell Hammond

Time cannot do to ordinary things what we timelessly do to one another. — William H Gass

The new world may be in fact a very, very, very, very old world. — Padgett Powell

Sometimes i lose faith in human nature for a time; i am assailed by doubt. — William Faulkner

Really, my artiste, you amaze me. The lengths you will go to in order to accomplish your own destruction. The redundancy of it! In Night City, you had it, in the palm of your hand! The speed to eat your sense away, drink to keep it all so fluid, Linda for a sweeter sorrow, and the street to hold the axe. How far you've come, to do it now, and what grotesque props. . . . Playgrounds hung in space, castles hermetically sealed, the rarest rots of old Europa, dead men sealed in little boxes, magic out of China. . . . — William Gibson

Christmas is about community, collaboration, celebration. Done right, Christmas can be an antidote to the Me First mentality that has rebranded capitalism as neo-liberalism. The shopping mall isn't our true home, nor is it a public space, though, as libraries, parks, playgrounds, museums and sports facilities disappear, for many the fake friendliness of the mall is the only public space left, apart from the streets — Jeanette Winterson

Do you want me to shoot thee, ingles? ... quieres? it is nothing. — Ernest Hemingway,

fate is the ultimate preexisting condition. — Mark Leyner

Shoot up everything except a school or a playground — Birdman

Do we really want to condemn as excessive the use of safety helmets, car seats, playgrounds designed so kids will be less likely to crack their skulls, childproof medicine bottles, and baby gates at the top of stairs? One writer criticizes "the inappropriateness of excessive concern in low-risk environments," but of course reasonable people disagree about what constitutes both "excessive" and "low risk." Even if, as this writer asserts, "a young person growing up in a Western middle-class family is safer today than at any time in modern history," the relevance of that relative definition of safety isn't clear. Just because fewer people die of disease today than in medieval times doesn't mean it's silly to be immunized. And perhaps young people are safer today because of the precautions that some critics ridicule. — Alfie Kohn

Cinema is not a playground for Sharon Stone. — Peter Greenaway

Build an inner place to protect your truth. — Richard Bach

Ordinary people can never fall over the walls, because they never dare climb high enough to see what is beyond the walls. — B. Traven

My interest, perhaps, came out of the trauma of being a young immigrant in this country and constantly feeling my "resident alien" status. I remember trying to learn English on kindergarten playgrounds. I tried hard to be a convincing American but it was a losing battle. I was labeled weird and that tag never left me - all through high school, I was always the oddball. It was not always an easy path - I just had to tell myself that one day, being on the periphery would become an asset (and I think it finally has, as a creative adult). — Porochista Khakpour

Make your race a playground, not a proving ground. — Lauren Fleshman

New York City is my playground. — Bethenny Frankel

There's no need for algebra where two and two make five. — Thomas Wolfe

On the road halfway between faith and criticism stands the inn of reason. reason is faith in what can be understood without faith, but it's still a faith, since to understand presupposes that there's something understandable. — Fernando Pessoa

Play is under attack in our nation's schools - and shrinking recess periods are only part of the problem. Homework is increasing. Cities are building new schools without playgrounds. Safety concerns are prompting bans of tag, soccer, and even running on the schoolyard. — Darell Hammond

Probably horse doo had a name in french also, but that didn't mean god intended for you to eat it. — Richard Russo

If I get a script that's set in the jungle it goes to the bottom of the pile because I don't think the playgrounds are going to be very good there! I'm really aware of how lucky I am but I have the kind of job where I can bring my child to work. — Kate Beckinsale

I don't know about you, but I find the idea of a school at night time - imagining the silent classrooms in total darkness and the playgrounds left lonesome and bare - creepily peculiar. — Elizabeth Newton

During National Playground Safety Week, I'll celebrate common-sense safety. I'll also celebrate skinned knees and bruised elbows. I'll celebrate so-called 'dangerous' playgrounds - playgrounds with see-saws, zip lines and towering slides. — Darell Hammond

I guess the time gets spread very thin like
butter over all the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.
Also everywhere 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. — Emma Donoghue

Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family — Jane Smiley

why don't you beat him? — John Steinbeck

Don't hesitate to insulate your house, especially the floor. — Padgett Powell

There were no fear of death in children's eyes because they had seen hanging, stoning to death and chopping heads in playgrounds and parks. — M.F. Moonzajer

Poor children live in a particularly dangerous world
an urban world of broken stair railings, of busy streets serving as playgrounds, of lead paint, rats and rat poisons, or a rural world where families do not enjoy the minimal levels of public health accepted as standard for nearly a century. Whether in city or country, this is a world where cavities go unfilled and ear infections threatening permanent deafness go untreated. It is world where even a small child learns to be ashamed of the way he or she lives. — Kenneth Keniston

The summer ended. Day by day, and taking its time, the summer ended. The noises in the street began to change, diminish, voices became fewer, the music sparse. Daily, blocks and blocks of children were spirited away. Grownups retreated from the streets, into the houses. Adolescents moved from the sidewalk to the stoop to the hallway to the stairs, and rooftops were abandoned. Such trees as there were allowed their leaves to fall - they fell unnoticed - seeming to promise, not without bitterness, to endure another year. At night, from a distance, the parks and playgrounds seemed inhabited by fireflies, and the night came sooner, inched in closer, fell with a greater weight. The sound of the alarm clock conquered the sound of the tambourine, the houses put on their winter faces. The houses stared down a bitter landscape, seeming, not without bitterness, to have resolved to endure another year. — James Baldwin

The zombies, after all, were pretty slow to appreciate someone other than themselves, and they had been schooled not to denigrate the different.
Mrs. Hollingsworth's Men — Padgett Powell

The thing about books is, there are quite a number you don't have to read. — Donald Barthelme

Fertile plains, every foot of them tilled, are of the first necessity; but great natural playgrounds of mountain, forest, cliff-walled lake, and brawling brook are also necessary to the full and many-sided development of a fine race. — Theodore Roosevelt

Today is a good day to give no one a hard time about anything, or today is a good day to give everyone a hard time about everything. — Padgett Powell

In a new world behave in a new way as a new man. unhorse the conquistador. — Padgett Powell

You walk into the playgrounds in Shanghai and Beijing, and you see youngsters who are shorter, shaking and baking and having attitude. And Jeremy Lin is going to inspire all of them. — David Stern

Wouldn't you like to make sure all those millions you give to Uncle Sam went to schools and hospitals instead of nuclear warheads?'
As a matter of fact, he would. Playgrounds for big kids, preschool programs to little ones, and mandatory LASIK surgery for NFL refs. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Make life your playground, not your battlefield. — Ormond McGill

we remain children as long as we feel the urge to keep crossing this border and to learn. — Peter Nadas

It is contended that those who have been bred at Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and Westminster, that the public sentiment within each of those schools is high-toned and manly; that, in their playgrounds, courage is universally admired, meanness despised, manly feelings and generous conduct are encouraged: that an unwritten code of honor deals to the spoiled child of rank, and to the child of upstart wealth an even-handed justice, purges their nonsense out of both, and does all that can be done to make them gentlemen. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

He never mentioned whether something was fair, however. Fairness itself seemed to hold very little interest for him, which I found fascinating, as people, especially young people, are very interested in what's fair. Fairness is a concept taught to nice children: it is the governing principle of kindergartens and summer camps and playgrounds and soccer fields ... Fairness is for happy people, for people who have been lucky enough to have lived a life defined more by certainties than by ambiguities. — Hanya Yanagihara