Quotes & Sayings About When I Was A Child

When I was a child my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll be the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso. — Pablo Picasso

Being a novelist and being a mother have exactly coincided in my life: the call from my agent saying that I had a contract for my first novel - that was on my answering phone message when I got back from the hospital with my first child. — Barbara Kingsolver

When I was younger I thought I'd meet the man of my dreams, get married and have a child, but it all went higgledy-piggledy. Never say never, though ... — Anna Friel

One Sunday evening when it was very hot and breathlessly still we sere sitting here in this room in the dusk. He switched on the record player. Liszt. We sat. As I say, here. In this very room. We listened to the piece. Neither of us said a word. That's when he took my hand and we went out into the garden. In a quiet voice he said that I wasn't like any other person in the world and that some people wouldn't understand that. They wouldn't want me to be the way I was. They'd want to change me. They'd try to order me about and make me into the kind of person they wanted me to be. Since I was still a child there would be little I could do except stay alone, stay out of trouble, and make myself very small in the world. — Laird Koenig

When I grew older and awkward, when my parents divorced and life had gone all to hell, Demetrie stood me at the wardrobe mirror and told me over and over, 'You are beautiful. You are smart. You are important.' It was an incredible gift to give a child who thinks nothing of herself. — Kathryn Stockett

On Christmas morning when I was a child, my mother would leave a book wrapped at the foot of the bed, which was a hint that Santa had come. It was also her way of keeping us in bed a little longer before we went downstairs. So I've always associated books with happiness and gifts. And they are. I can't get enough of them. — David McCullough

At the point when Jared relayed Ash's habit of hiding his cuddly toys in the freezer, Kami started to laugh in the movie theater. Ash glanced over at her. "Sorry," Kami murmured. "Just - the movie's funny." Ash looked back at the movie, in which a small blond child was dying of leukemia. "I have a very warped sense of humor," Kami whispered. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Autobiographia Literaria"
When I was a child
I played by myself in a
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.
I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.
If anyone was looking
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out "I am
an orphan."
And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine! — Frank O'Hara

From books, I winnowed the glue that held together my psyche as it struggled to stay whole. It was from stories and myths that I learned to dream, to imagine a different life, to realize potentials and probabilities other than those of the painful, poverty-mired existence I found myself in as a child. With a book I could hide in a corner, safe from the heavy hand and belt of my stepfather, and for a while not worry about where our next meal would come from, or where we would be sleeping that night, or when my mother would break and have to be sent yet again to the mental institution. Books, for me, we tiny life rafts that I clung to desperately. — J. Don Cook

I always knew I was brainy. It struck me when I was a child that I wanted to be an adult because I never felt I belonged among children whose minds were so much simpler than mine. — Maximillian Degenerez

When you grow up in that (multi-ethnic) environment, you see the world differently. Being a mixed-race child, I didn't always see colour in people, I really didn't. It was other people that made me see the colour all the time. — Halle Berry

What I fell in love with as a child was 'My Fair Lady,' 'Funny Face,' 'American in Paris,' and 'Singin' in the Rain.' Just perfect movies to me and I was dancing. I started ballet when I was three. And I fell in love with those movies and fell in love with Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron. — Dianna Agron

I was not an attractive child. When I didn't use my Girl Scouts uniform as a uniform, I used it as a tent. — Joan Rivers

Before I really even understood what the term meant, I wanted to be wealthy. I wanted to be able to drive the beautiful old Rolls-Royces my father admired when I was a child. — John Caudwell

I started horse-riding when I was a child and still try to go as often as I can. — Neve McIntosh

When I was a child and told my mother I didn't felt this was my planet, she thought I was schizophrenic or autistic. When later I finished a college degree and started working in different countries, she called me monster and started threatening me. Nearly 40 years later, when I was making a living from the books I wrote based on what I know, and making 6 times more money than she ever will, she apologized. I'm just not sure why or what she was apologizing for. I had already forgiven her ignorance when realizing nobody would ever believe the truth but myself. I had to go the whole way alone. Nobody was going to come with me on this very long, painful and challenging journey that humans call life but for me was much more than that, it was my mission, of changing their whole future far beyond the time when I'm gone. She was never my mother but merely the human body that gave me birth. In that sense, I am a monster, because I had no love. I had to find that too, on my own. — Robin Sacredfire

As a child i suppose i was not quite normal. my happiest times were when i was left alone in the house on a saturday. — Charles Bukowski

I wasn't allowed to see movies when I was a child. It was against the religion I was raised in, Fundamentalist Baptist. I didn't go into a commercial movie house until I was a senior in college, and that was on the sly. It wasn't until I was in graduate school that I immersed myself in films. Then, I went to see all the films by Bergman, Fellini, etc. — Wes Craven

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

When I was a child, our summer days were spent swimming; chlorine in my hair was like perfume to me. — Patti Davis

When I was a child, my December weekends were spent making cards, decorating the tree, hanging the wreath and preparing brandy butter and peppermint creams. — Pippa Middleton

I am an immigrant in a sense. What happened was that my father was stationed in New York when my mother became pregnant, and she said, "I've got to go to Sweden so this child can be born there, because you don't have any idea where you're going to be transferred next." — Claes Oldenburg

All of a sudden, life became too much to bear. Just like that, for no particular reason. Because there was a child's corpse in the fridge on rue Parthenais. Because I had to start all over again from scratch, one more time. Because I had rolled my rock to the top of the hill and now it was rolling back down again. The times before, I'd always managed to put on a brave face. But there comes a time when you just don't feel strong enough to look for another place to live and go shopping again for clothes and dishes and cutlery and scouring pads and toilet paper. This was one of those times. When I got back to the hotel, I asked the Barbie at reception for the key to the minibar. It burned in the palm of my hand. I slapped it back down on the counter and ran out. I had to find a meeting. — Bernard Emond

When I was a child, I read books. My reading was not indiscriminate. I preferred books that were old and thick and hard. I made vocabulary lists. — Marilynne Robinson

When I was a child ... Only virtue was prized, virtue at the expense of intellect, health, happiness, and every mundane good. — Bertrand Russell

I wished I could get up in the morning and look at the day the way I used to when I was a child. I wished I could walk down the streets and not hear those constant, abrasive sounds from the mouths of the opposite sex. Damn, I wished the world would let me be myself. — Rita Mae Brown

Even as a child I was fascinated by death, not in a spiritual sense, but in an aesthetic one. A hamster or guinea pig would pass away, and, after burying the body, I'd dig it back up: over and over, until all that remained was a shoddy pelt. It earned me a certain reputation, especially when I moved on to other people's pets. "Igor," they called me. "Wicked, spooky." But I think my interest was actually fairly common, at least among adolescent boys. At that age, death is something that happens only to animals and grandparents, and studying it is like a science project. — David Sedaris

I was very unique as a child, dressed a certain way, acted a certain way, didn't fit in with everybody. So I immediately got picked on, especially around the age of 12 and 13, when you start going to junior high and start mingling with the older kids. To counteract that, strictly for self-defense, I wanted to get bigger. — John Cena

I found when I was a child that if I put the hurt into words, it would go. — Jean Rhys

when my mother was pregnant with her second child i was four i pointed at her swollen belly confused at how my mother had gotten so big in such little time my father scooped me in his tree trunk arms and said the closest thing to god on this earth is a woman's body it's where life comes from and to have a grown man tell me something so powerful at such a young age changed me to see the entire universe rested at my mother's feet — Rupi Kaur

Books never cease to astonish me. When I was a child, I knew
in the incontestable way that children know things
that God was an author who'd imagined me, which is why I (and everyone else) existed: to populate His narrative. My task was to imagine God in return: this was all He and I owed each other. — Martha Cooley

Any mother could tell you that a child invades her space from the moment of conception. And for years after, space does not exist. It was one of the things I had missed. I'd even yearned for it. And then Eli died, and I had all the space I had thought I wanted. Not just a little space. Outer space. Galaxies. And I'd floated in it in agony, longing for the days when there had been no such thing. — Amy Harmon

When I was a child, she'd have me wash the lettuce ten times or open walnuts by hand to make a cake. I was like, 'Mom, this is ridiculous.' But now? I run my kitchen the same way. — Daniel Humm

When i was a child, i liked tasting any candy i happened to see, but as i grew older, i realized those are a great meal to the worms in my innards. Will you shun old habits or nay? That's the question. — Michael Bassey Johnson

What do I see when I look in the mirror? One handsome man. No, I see the same person I have seen for the last 27 years: the person I believed I could be when I was a child, the person I have inspired and dreamed to be all my life, and that's the person I have seen, from being that big to as big as the roof - the same guy. — Tyson Fury

Ten thousand!" I shouted at the walls, back in the room with the wooden shutters, now open, so that anyone could hear me, on the porch or probably across the compound. "That arrogant bastard landed ten thousand men at Tas-Elisa. In my port! Mine!" When I was a child and playmates snatched my toys out of my hands, I tended to smile weakly and give in. Years later I was acting the way I should have as a child. Probably not the most mature behavior for a king, but I was still cursing as I swung around to find a delegation of barons in the doorway behind me. My father, Baron Comeneus, and Baron Xorcheus among them.
They thought it was how a king behaved.
I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to pursue a more reasonable line of thought, but more reasonable thoughts made me angry again. — Megan Whalen Turner

I always listen," Ranger said. "I don't always agree. I have a problem right now that I can't seem to solve by myself. I need you to help me find my daughter. And there's an even bigger problem involved. I feel a financial and moral obligation to my daughter. I send child support, I send birthday and Christmas presents, I visit when I'm invited. But I've kept myself emotionally distanced. I'm not emotionally distanced from you. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you because I was using you to find someone . . . even if that someone was my daughter. So I have to make every effort to keep you safe." "You're a little smothering. — Janet Evanovich

Even though he had admitted to her that he used to watch me shower through a hole in the bathroom wall back when I was thirteen. She blamed us both for what we had "done" to her. But it sounds like she got over being mad at him pretty quick. She later told me that she had to go back and have sex with him one more time, just to make sure that there was nothing left between the two of them and to get some closure. That almost made me want to vomit. The only interaction between us after that was her showing up at the courthouse when I had to sit in front of a grand jury of twelve strangers and tell them what had happened. She came into the waiting room where I was sitting and started screaming that I was a whore and that I'd fucked her husband. She had to be escorted out of the court by two officers. That's what I got from her. — Ashly Lorenzana

When a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away. — Anna Pavlova

I'm a child of the '60s, I came of age then. I went to a couple of demonstrations, and then in the late '60s when the Vietnam anti-war movement grew as the Vietnam War was heating up, I became very involved in that. — Simi Linton

When I was a child, I never played with other children. I hated them. — Karl Lagerfeld

As a child, I was very active. I was a gymnast, I played touch football, netball and basketball. When I was 16 years old, I started yoga. I started working out at an early age. — Miranda Kerr

Girls see these defined roles they're supposed to follow in life, but when I was a young child, my parents told me I could be anything. — Joan Jett

And it came to me that these trees had been hardly smaller when I was yet unborn, and had stood as they stood now when I was a child playing among the cypresses and peaceful tombs of our necropolis, and that they would stand yet, drinking in the light of the dying sun, even as now, when I had been dead as long as those who rested there. I saw how little it weighed on the scale of things whether I lived or died, though my life was precious to me. And of those two thoughts I forged a mood by which I stood ready to grasp each smallest chance to live, yet in which I cared not too much whether I saved myself or not. By that mood, as I think, I did live; it has been so good a friend to me that I have endeavored to wear it ever since, succeeding not always, but often. — Gene Wolfe

In my case, I got hit a lot by bullies when I was a child, and so I naturally bristle against anybody who abuses power. And that seems to make me rather persistent when it comes to exposing the abuse of power. — Nick Davies

When I was a child, I enjoyed thinking about the future, and especially
loved to imagine flying around in one of those cool bubble cars I'd seen
on The Jetsons cartoons. Here we are, fifty years later, and we have the same
gas- and oil-guzzling motor vehicles, the same basic planes, the same trains,
the same utility companies to monitor and charge for our electricity, gas, and
water usage. Jimmy Carter talked a lot about new sources of energy back in
the 1970s. So did some of the hippies. And yet, decades later, there has been
little progression on this front. — Donald Jeffries

I used to watch a lot of American and British television as a child, which helped teach me the language and accents; it was partly that which landed me the part of Roxy in a London production of 'Chicago' when I was 25. — Birgitte Hjort Sorensen

My mum taught me to knit when I was a child, and I turn to it, for some weird reason, when I'm feeling depressed. — Jo Brand

There is no looking-glass here and I don't know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us - hard, cold and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I? — Jean Rhys

I am pitching it feebly," said young Bingo earnestly. "You haven't heard the thing. I have. Rosie shoved the cylinder on the dictating-machine last night before dinner, and it was grisly to hear the instrument croaking out those awful sentences. If that article appears I shall be kidded to death by every pal I've got. Bertie," he said, his voice sinking to a hoarse whisper, "you have about as much imagination as a warthog, but surely even you can picture to yourself what Jimmy Bowles and Tuppy Rogers, to name only tow, will say when they see me referred to in print as "half god, half prattling, mischievous child"?"
I jolly well could
"She doesn't say that?"I gasped.
"She certainly does. And when I tell you that I selected that particular quotation because it's about the only one I can stand hearing spoken, you will realise what I'm up against. — P.G. Wodehouse

I was lucky to grow up at a time when it was not difficult for the child of a tenant farmer to make his way to the state university. — James Hansen

I was a child with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and remember enjoying all of my courses almost equally. When it came time at the end of my high school career to choose a major in which to specialize, I was in a quandary. — Gertrude B. Elion

I went to big, broken, under-resourced public schools, but we had a real sense of community, because those were days in the '50s and the '60s when every child was under the jurisdiction of every single adult on the block. — Deval Patrick

When the strong healthy boy, howling at the indignity of the birth process, was put to her breast, she felt a wild tenderness for him, The other baby, Francis, in the crib next her bed, began to whimper. Katie had a flash of contempt for the weak child she had borne a year ago, when she compared her to this new handsome son. She was quickly ashamed of hr contempt. She knew it wasn't the little girl's fault. "I must watch myself carefully," she thought. "I am going to love this boy more than the girl but I mustn't ever let her know. It is wrong to love one child more than the other but this is something that I cannot help. — Betty Smith

I've had such a hard time with dyslexia my whole life. When I was a child, I didn't learn to read until I was a lot older, and I was behind in my classes; it was such a challenge. — Charlotte McKinney

Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out,
swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing ...
And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.
And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still
red, his eyes not yet extinguished.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
"For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where
hanging here from this gallows ... "
That night, the soup tasted of corpses. — Elie Wiesel

When I saw photographs of children murdered by the Fascist, I felt furious pity. When the supporters of Franco talked of Red atrocities, I merely felt indignant that people should tell such lies. In the first case I saw corpses, in the second only words ... I gradually acquired a certain horror of the way in which my own mind worked. It was clear to me that unless I cared about every murdered child impartially, I did not really care about children being murdered at all. — Stephen Spender

I didn't have a fireworks moment for my salvation. I had a falling in love with Jesus in Sunday school when I was a very young child. — Beth Moore

While I was looking into Olivia's mad eyes and dreaming, my son left his game and his place by the fire. I didn't even notice as he went toward what I had thought was a bundle of rags. I didn't notice as he turned it over and drew back the blanket, lifted it carefully in his small arms.
I only noticed when he spoke.
"Look, Daddy!"
Then, too late, I turned around. I did not know what I was seeing, but even then I felt a sudden lurch of shock and dread. I felt as if I had looked away at a crucial moment and my child had fallen into the fire and been burned horribly.
I saw my son, my Alan, my darling boy, and in his arms a creature with staring, terrible black eyes. Something that had not stirred or cried out even when Olivia threw it on the floor.
"Daddy," Alan said, glowing. "It's a baby. — Sarah Rees Brennan

When I was a child of six or seven my father would show me the chapter in the prophet Isaiah where the name Immanuel is found; more than once he spoke to me of the faith he put in me. — Immanuel Velikovsky

I eat tons, three full meals a day, and I never go to the gym. When I was a child, my geography teacher said, 'You may be slim now but if you carry on eating like that, you'll end up being really fat.' Fortunately, I really don't think I've changed much in the past two decades, so that teacher was an idiot. — Gina Bellman

I was privileged to grow up in Mexico at a time when you could play in the streets. We lived not too far from the ocean, and we would be outside all the time with the neighbours' kids, running free. What better place could there be for a child? — Salma Hayek

When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family. My father had always identified himself as a writer to my mother when they met. When they met, he was writing this great novel, there was no doubt about it. — Nick Flynn

Not many people know this about me, but I'm a natural blonde. My hair went from light blonde naturally to a darker kind of blonde. My mother dyed my hair dark when I was a child, as I loved the look then. So I'm basically a natural blonde. — Angelina Jolie

I was eight years old when my father was murdered. It is almost impossible to describe the pain of losing a parent to a senseless murder ... But even as a child, one thing was clear to me: I didn't want the killer, in turn, to be killed. I remember lying in bed and praying, Please, God. Please don't take his life, too. I saw nothing that could be accomplished in the loss of one life being answered with the loss of another. — Kerry Kennedy

I was really shy when I was a child, very self-conscious about taking up space or being an attention seeker. I was the kind of kid who was really good at homework. — Mickey Sumner

I know you hear horror stories about child actors, but I think in my family when I did start acting it was never a big deal. — Ashley Johnson

I loved Japan. I used to read a lot about it when I was a child. And I always wanted to go. And it was delightful. I absolutely loved it. What a smashing place. — Billy Connolly

I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my life is; who I am now. I stayed up all night, anxiously waiting for daylight, so that I could fully return to my new life, to rediscover happiness I had known as a child, the joy that had stayed alive inside me even through times when being alive itself became a burden. These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past. — Ishmael Beah

When I was a child, I loved 'The Marble Faun' by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The reason I liked it was because it had a beautiful binding. When you're a kid, you like books because they're pretty to look at, and this one had a white calfskin cover and gold edges. That was enough to make me love it. — Edmund White

In hindsight, though, I might have overdone it by adding that flour, which means before I depart for Abigail's cottage I need to tidy up this room." "If you're moving out, I'm moving with you," Thaddeus said, slipping up beside Millie and taking hold of her hand. Elizabeth was the next to move. She reached out and put her arm around Millie's middle, leaning in to rest her head against Millie's side. "I'm coming too," she said as she snuggled closer right as Millie smiled and placed a quick kiss on top of Elizabeth's paste-covered head. Everett's heart immediately took to the unusual act of lurching, no doubt due to the sight of Millie's understated affection. Ladies of society always made a big production out of kissing their children when company was present, but Millie . . . Her kiss had been the real thing, a show of regard for a child who'd caused her no small amount of trouble. Expecting — Jen Turano

I don't know what I would have done if they had hugged me. I probably would have frozen in place, become stiff. It took most of my life to overcome my distaste for physical contact and not to stiffen when I was touched, or flinch, twitch, fidget, and eventually figure out how to move away. I learned to accept being hugged by my children when they were infants. Their joy at seeing me enter a room was real and filled with true love and affection and it showed in their embraces. Like a convert, when I learned the joy and comfort of being hugged by and hugging those I loved, I became a regular practitioner. — John William Tuohy

My mother tried to teach me when I was a small child to sing but failed because of my inability to carry a tune. — Heber J. Grant

Because my parents were American missionaries who sent me to public schools in rural Japan, I had to confront Hiroshima as a child. I was in the fourth grade - the only American in my class - when our teacher wrote the words "America" and "Atomic Bomb" in white chalk on the blackboard. All forty Japanese children turned around to stare at me. My country had done something unforgivable and I had to take responsibility for it, all by myself. I desperately wanted to dig a hole under my desk, to escape my classmates' mute disbelief and never have to face them again. — Linda Hoaglund

When I was kidnapped as a child my parents sent a letter to the hijackers me Pay 5,000 dollars or your back — Rodney Dangerfield

But what made him still more fortunate, as he said himself, was having a daughter of such exceeding beauty, rare intelligence, gracefulness, and virtue, that everyone who knew her and beheld her marvelled at the extraordinary gifts with which heaven and nature had endowed her. As a child she was beautiful, she continued to grow in beauty, and at the age of sixteen she was most lovely. The fame of her beauty began to spread abroad through all the villages around - but why do I say the villages around, merely, when it spread to distant cities, and even made its way into the halls of royalty and reached the ears of people of every class, who came from all sides to see her as if to see something rare and curious, or some wonder-working image? — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

When I was a child, one of my first games was a time machine which I made for my brother - a big box covered in silver and bits of cellophane. I'd close him up in it and joggle him and say, 'We're in Victorian times now ... and now we're in Egyptian times, and I can see all these pyramids and pharaohs.' — Kate Williams

I was the illegitimate child of the legitimate theater. I had no training. I came from downtown rock and roll, and when I came in and auditioned for the Broadway revival of 'Hair,' I had no eyebrows - kind of a Bowie-esque glimmer kid. And it was hard representing the flower power era when we were stone cold punks. — Annie Golden

Why are there such long words in the world, Miss?' enquires Sophie, when the mineralogy lesson is over.
'One long difficult word is the same as a whole sentence full of short easy ones, Sophie,' says Sugar. 'It saves time and paper.' Seeing that the child is unconvinced, she adds, 'If books were written in such a way that every person, no matter how young, could understand everything in them, they would be enormously long books. Would you wish to read a book that was a thousand pages long, Sophie?'
Sophie answers without hesitation.
'I would read a thousand million pages, Miss, if all the words were words I could understand. — Michel Faber

When I was a child there were many witches, and they bewitched both cattle and men, especially children. — Martin Luther

So it was understandable that Lily didn't at first notice the very large man in her bed when she entered the room assigned to her. When she did, she stopped dead and hissed, "You can't be in here!" The covers were pulled to his waist, but he appeared to be quite naked underneath. "Why not?" Apollo asked, apparently having forgotten all the social niceties that someone must've taught him as a small child. "Because this is your sister's house." He cocked his head. "Actually it's His Grace the Ass's house, but I do see your meaning. You know she's a floor above us? — Elizabeth Hoyt

Hera: Ohh, Thalia Grace, when I get out of here, you'll be sorry you were ever born.
Thalia: Save it! You've been nothing but a curse to every child of Zeus for ages. You sent a bunch of intestinally challenged cows after my friend Annabeth
Hera: She was disrespectful!
Thalia: You dropped a statue on my legs.
Hera: It was an accident!
Thalia: AND you took my brother — Rick Riordan

I hated it so much as a child. I just didn't like it when punk bands went metal, it really bothered me. It was happening left and right in the 1980s. It started I think with D.C. bands - G.I., Soul Side, they went metal. Right at that time, R.E.M. was coming out, these more kinda feminine bands, and I was more drawn to that than to go metal. And you remember MTV, with the bad metal. But even Metallica, it just wasn't my direction. — Stephen Malkmus

When I was a child I had a crush on Abraham Lincoln. Why I would choose to reveal this, I know not. — Julia Roberts

When I was a child, I had posters of James Dean in my room. I was a big admirer of his work and was fascinated by him living on the edge. Looking back, my life was kind of the same. — Boris Becker

When I was a child, I loved old people. My New Hampshire grandfather was my model human being. — Donald Hall

Breathing, n
You had asthma as a child, had to carry around an inhaler. But when you grew older, it went away. You could run for miles and it was fine.
Sometimes I worry that this is happening to me in reverse. The older I get, the more I lose my ability to breathe. — David Levithan

Except for when I was very little and thought that being an "engineer" meant he drove a train. Then I imagined him in the seat of an engine car the color of coal, a string of shiny passenger cars trailing behind. One day my father laughed and corrected me. Everything snapped into focus. It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you. — Nicole Krauss

When I was a child, doctors sent my grandmother home in a wheelchair to die. Diagnosed with end-stage heart disease, she already had so much scar tissue from bypass operations that the surgeons had essentially run out of plumbing. There was nothing more to do, they said; her life was over at 65. — Michael Greger

When I was a child, my behavior was far from being what most people would label 'intelligent.' It was often limited, repetitive and anti-social. I could not do many of the things that most people take for granted, such as looking someone in the eye or deciphering a person's body language, and only acquired these skills with much effort over time. — Daniel Tammet

When I was a child, my father used to encourage my brother and me to fail. At the dinner table, instead of asking about the best part of our day, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn't have something to tell him, he would be disappointed. When we shared whatever failure we'd endured, he'd high-five us and say, 'Way to go!' The gift my father gave us by doing this was redefining what failure truly meant. — Sara Blakely

When I was younger, I'd wanted someone to promise me that things would work out and nothing bad would ever happen again. But I understood now that that was a child's wish. No one could promise that. No one. The grown-ups could try, but they couldn't promise, not and mean it. — Laurell K. Hamilton

When I was a child, my father taught me to put up my fists like a boy and to be prepared to defend myself at all times. — Camille Paglia

All the work I have done, all that I have sacrificed these past ten years, has been in Orlon's name, to honor him and to save his kingdom - my kingdom. I do not plan to let a spoiled, arrogant child destroy that with her temper tantrums. Did you enjoy the riches of Rifthold these years, Princess? Was it very easy to forget us in the North when you were buying clothes and serving the monster who butchered your family and friends?" Men, — Sarah J. Maas

The woods are a place where children can go to think. Children gravitate towards these spaces. When I was a child it was nothing more than a scrubby little overhang under a rhododendron bush, but it was incredibly important to me. — Jay Griffiths

So perhaps the reason I shuddered at the idea of writing something about 'Christian art' is that to paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth-giver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary, who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says 'Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.' And the artist either says 'My soul doth magnify the Lord' and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessicarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary. — Madeleine L'Engle

When I was a child I burnt the back of my right hand on a hot iron.

I can't recall the pain, but there's an eye-shaped scar as testament to it. As a teenager I used to think it was the all seeing eye of the anti-Christ and that I was the devil incarnate. Or at least a minion.

It was my right hand, innit?

What I do remember though is my father, or Dad as we called him, abandoning the polite Abbu, telling me not to cry and to be patient because the fires of hell were seventy times hotter than the fire of the iron. — Ruth Ahmed

Death is like giving birth. Birth can be painful. Sometimes women die from giving birth. However, when the baby is born, all that pain (that was endured) vanishes in an instant. Love for that tiny baby makes one forget the pain, the fear. And as I've said before, love between mother and child is the highest experience, the closest to divine love.
You might wonder about the parallel I'm making between birth and death. But I say to you, the fear and pain accompanying an awful death is over quickly. Beyond that portal one is suddenly in the light, in oneness and bliss ... Just as a woman heals rapidly after childbirth and then is able to fall in love with her baby, those who pass over also are able to fall in love with a new life."-Kuan Yin (From "Oracle of Compassion: the Living Word of Kuan Yin — Hope Bradford

When I was a kid, I used to pretend to be Bond; I used to make up scenarios and irritate my sister and annoy my mother and father pretending to be someone else, so I kind of was already acting when I was a child. I just didn't really know it. — Aneurin Barnard

Everything that I'm seeing in America, when it comes to the groundwater contamination and the poisoning of people I see, it's a moral issue. Nobody's ever gonna convince me that a CEO wouldn't care if his own child was poisoned. — Erin Brockovich