Why My Child Quotes & Sayings

My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better. — Andre Bauer

Mark whirled on them. His eyes were blind, unseeing. You bring the twins in front of me and you kill them over and over. My Ty, he doesn't understand why I can't save him. You bring me Dru and when she laughs to see the fairytale castle, all ringed round with hedges, you throw her against the thorns until their pierce her small body. And you bid me wash in Octavian's blood for the blood of an innocent child is magic under the Hill. — Cassandra Clare

I tried opening the door to the car again, forgetting the darned thing would not open. "You need to get this door fixed," I nagged.
"It's not broken, my lovely," David grinned.
"Then why won't it open?"
"Child locks to keep the princess from opening the door herself." He gave me a crooked smile.
"Oh," I blushed. — Nely Cab

Do you see anything Wrong with my teeth?"
"Plenty, I'm surprised you can eat. Maybe that's why your're so little — Lee Child

Think of my Pleasure in Solitude, in comparison of my commerce with the world - there I am a child - there they do not know me not even my most intimate acquaintance - I give into their feelings as though I were refraining from irritating a little child - Some think me middling, others silly, other foolish - every one thinks he sees my weak side against my will; when in thruth it is with my will - I am content to be thought all this because I have in my own breast so graet a resource. This is one great reason why they like me so; because they can all show to advantage in a room, and eclipese from a certain tact one who is reckoned to be a good Poet - I hope I am not here playing tricks 'to make the angels weep': I think not: for I have not the least contempt for my species; and though it may sound paradoxical: my greatest elevations of Soul leave me every time more humbled - Enough of this - though in your Love for me you will not think it enough. — John Keats

If you make my children, make any child, feel bad for who they are, I will teach you why people fear mama grizzlies more than papa grizzlies. — Patricia Briggs

Why do so many children love the idea of being snowed in or shipwrecked, of having to survive on one's own? When I was a child, I was no exception. I wanted to hunt with a bow and arrow like the Stone Age people: to skin deer and build my own shelter. And I desperately wanted a wolf. As we lived in London, my options were limited. — Michelle Paver

Why are you here?"
"To fetch the woman I cut from the veil of the rock."
"Why did you cut?"
"To send her spirit out, so that she would come to make the child, for me to teach to dance and sing and dream, to free the beasts within the rock to fill the world."
"Have you found her?"
"She is not here. There are only people horrible to see."
"Where are your stories?" said the other.
"I cannot tell them. My head is a cloud. — Alan Garner

Nicole's door opened, and she stomped down the hall. "I have something to say," she said, giving him the Slitty Eyes of Death. "You're totally unfair, and if I run away, you shouldn't be surprised." "Don't make me put a computer chip in your ear," Liam answered. "It's not funny! I hate you." "Well, I love you, even if you did ruin my life by turning into a teenager," he said, rubbing his eyes. "Did you study for your test?" "Yes." "Good." He looked at his daughter - so much like Emma, way too pretty. Why weren't there convent schools anymore? Or chastity belts? "Want some supper? I saved your plate." She rolled her eyes with all the melodrama a teenager could muster. "Fine. I may as well become a fat pig since I can't ever go on a date." "That's my girl," he said and, grinning, got up to heat up her dinner. — Kristan Higgins

One day I was speeding along at the typewriter, and my daughter - who was a child at the time - asked me, "Daddy, why are you writing so fast?" And I replied, "Because I want to see how the story turns out! — Louis L'Amour

Sometimes I am a little unkind to all my many friends in education ... by saying that from the time it learns to talk every child makes a dreadful nuisance of itself by asking 'Why?'. To stop this nuisance society has invented a marvellous system called education which, for the majority of people, brings to an end their desire to ask that question. The few failures of this system are known as scientists. — Hermann Bondi

Even as a small child, I wondered why the Dominican nuns who educated me were subservient to the Jesuit priests who educated my brothers. — Janine Di Giovanni

I don't know why people think child actresses in particular are screwed up. I see kids everywhere who are totally bored. I've never been bored a day in my life. — Jodie Foster

Why the Romans, Father?" I asked him one afternoon.
"Because, my child, they teach us how to bear suffering in a world of injustice where all faith is dead," he answered. — Judith Merkle Riley

my two primary sleep aids, Behemoth and a YouTube recording of a vacuum cleaner, the Hoover WindTunnel. I don't know why I find the sound comforting, Doc, when I was a child in Cairo, my afternoon naps coincided with the rhythmic beating of carpets outside the bedroom, I was used to sleeping to that sound, but no one beat carpets anymore, a shame, though lo and behold, I found that not only did a vacuum cleaner remove dirt more effectively, it summoned Hypnos just as well as a beating, and there were twelve-hour-long recordings of all kinds of household machines online, welcome to America, now go to sleep. Maybe — Rabih Alameddine

Mister Pierre was finally looking at the baby's body. "A boy? Why aren't you two lackwits seeing to my child?" There had been women's voices in this room all these long hours. Mister Pierre's booming was like sudden thunder during a soft rain. — Nalo Hopkinson

A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby. — John Steinbeck

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

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

It's dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That's why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling ... — Aldous Huxley

According to Mr. E., all of this was my fault," Ryan explained. With a little too much amusement if you ask me. "For making you fall in love with me
and ruining everything."
"Why did that ruin everything?"
Ryan was quiet for a moment, and I couldn't believe it when his grin changed into that infamous cocky smirk. "You just said you love me!" he
accused with excitement.
Again, I gaped at him, temporarily speechless. Of course I denied it. I had to; it was my natural reaction to his ego. "I did not!"
"Did too." He grinned. "You said, 'why did that ruin everything.' Meaning you agree that it happened. You said it. Can't take it back. You love me."
Learning to control my powers was child's play compared to keeping a straight face right then, but I couldn't give in to his smugness. He was just so
sure of himself. "Do not."
"Do too."
"Do not."
"So do too. — Kelly Oram

When I was nine, I had a babysitter who didn't want to hurt anything. She put it just like that when I asked her why she wasn't having chicken with my older brother and me: "I don't want to hurt anything." [ ... ] What our babysitter said made sense to me, not only because it seemed true, but because it was the extension to food of everything my parents had taught me. We don't hurt family members. We don't hurt friends or strangers. We don't even hurt upholstered furniture. My not having thought to include animals in that list didn't make them the exceptions to it. It just made me a child, ignorant of the world's workings. Until I wasn't. At which point I had to change my life. — Jonathan Safran Foer

My mom had me when she was 16, and I was an only child, which is probably why I received a lot of love and didn't miss that my father wasn't around. — Brett Ratner

My laboratory,' I said, experimentally, drawing out each syllable. 'Why is it that saying it like that always makes me want to follow it with 'mwoo-hah-hah-hahhhhh'? '
'You were overexposed to Hammer Films as a child?'
- Harry Dresden & Bob the Skull, Changes, Jim Butcher — Jim Butcher

Why is it important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It's important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you 'my beloved daughter,' 'my beloved son,' 'my beloved child.' To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being. — Henri Nouwen

If anything, I believe that when I die, I will have to stand in front of all the children who went to bed hungry while I was on earth and read aloud a list of my eBay purchases. I shudder to think of it. Explaining to a poor child with a swollen belly why I didn't give his village fifty cents a week but spent twenty-seven dollars in a bidding war for a Mars Attacks coffee cup. — Dana Gould

I began to ponder; this life we had for ourselves, Eric and I, it felt like the opposite of Potage Parmentier. It was easy enough to keep on with the soul-sucking jobs; at least it saved having to make a choice. But how much longer could I take such an easy life? Quicksand was easy. Hell, death was easy. Maybe that's why my synapses had started snapping at the sight of potatoes and leeks in the Korean deli. Maybe that was what was plucking deep down in my belly whenever I thought of Julia Child's book. Maybe I needed to make like a potato, winnow myself down, be a part of something that was not easy, just simple. — Julie Powell

Why do you mention my father?' screamed he; 'Why do you mingle a recollection of him with the affairs of today?'
Because I am he who saved your father's life when he wished to destroy himself, as you do today-because I am the man who sent the purse to your young sister, and the Paraon to Old Morrel-because I am the Edmond Dantes who nursed you, a child, on my knees. — Alexandre Dumas

My sexual exploits with my neighborhood playmates continued. I lived a busy homosexual childhood, somehow managing to avoid venereal disease through all my toddler years. By first grade I was sexually active with many friends. In fact, a small group of us regularly met in the grammar school lavatory to perform fellatio on one another. A typical week's schedule would be Aaron and Michael on Monday during lunch; Michael and Johnny on Tuesday after school; Fred and Timmy at noon Wednesday; Aaron and Timmy after school on Thursday. None of us ever got caught, but we never worried about it anyway. We all understood that what we were doing was not to be discussed freely with adults but we viewed it as a fun sort of confidential activity. None of us had any guilty feelings about it; we figured everyone did it. Why shouldn't they? — Aaron Fricke

I am a strange compound of weakness and resolution! However, if I must suffer, I will endeavour to suffer in silence. There is certainly a great defect in my mind my wayward heart creates its own misery Why I am made thus I cannot tell; and, till I can form some idea of the whole of my existence, I must be content to weep and dance like a child long for a toy, and be tired of it as soon as I get it. — Mary Wollstonecraft

Venus of Eryx, from her mountain throne,
Saw Hades and clasped her swift-winged son, and said:
'Cupid, my child, my warrior, my power,
Take those sure shafts with which you conquer all,
And shoot your speedy arrows to the heart
Of the great god to whom the last lot fell
When the three realms were drawn. Your mastery
Subdues the gods of heaven and even Jove,
Subdues the ocean's deities and him,
Even him, who rules the ocean's deities.
Why should Hell lag behind? Why not there too
Extend your mother's empire and your own ... ?
Then Cupid, guided by his mother, opened
His quiver of all his thousand arrows
Selected one, the sharpest and the surest,
The arrow most obedient to the bow,
And bent the pliant horn against his knee
And shot the barbed shaft deep in Pluto's heart. — Ovid

As a child, I used to wonder why markets in my locality were all situated near the main roads. I grew up a little to get the answer; " that business minded people can meet there easily!" Your dream must be situated where they can meet people! — Israelmore Ayivor

Where are those tears in your eyes, my child?
How horrid of them to be always scolding you for nothing!
You have stained your fingers and face with ink while writing-
is that why they call you dirty?
O, fie! Would they dare to call the full moon dirty because
it has smudged its face with ink?
For every little trifle they blame you, my child. They are
ready to find fault for nothing.
You tore your clothes while playing-is that why they call you
untidy?
O, fie! What would they call an autumn morning that smiles
through its ragged clouds?
Take no heed of what they say to you, my child.
They make a long list of your misdeeds.
Everybody knows how you love sweet things-is that why they
call you greedy?
O, fie! What then would they call us who love you? — Rabindranath Tagore

Child, from this day forth you are the successor to the position of Sun Knight. So long as you stand firm in the face of tribulation, grow in courage with each trial you encounter, and defend your knight's honor no matter what difficulty or temptation you face, you will receive from my hands the title of Sun Knight the day you come of age."
"Teacher, may I recant my decision ?"
"No !"
"Why ?"
"Because I forgot to choose a back-up Sun Knight."
"... — Yu Wo

My God, I marvel that I am still so full of myself after having so often received Communion! O dear Jesus, be the child inside of us, so that we feel within and breathe forth nothing but you. Alas, you are so often within me; why am I so rarely in you? You enter into me; why am I so often outside of you? You are in my very self; why am I not in yours, to find there the great love of yours that transports our hearts? — Francis De Sales

I was born in an elevator, and - as my mother said - naturally it was going down. She said, "All I remember is telling your father, 'That's it! Never again!'" That's why I'm an only child. — Jack Lemmon

So what I realized when I was a child was that if I were traveling as fast as light while holding a mirror before me, I would not see my image in the mirror, because as fast as the image of my face in light moved toward the mirror, why, just as fast would the mirror be moving away ... It is a rather frightening idea, in fact, that if I moved at the speed of light, I could get no confirmation of my existence from an objective source of reflected light such as a mirror. I would be like a ghost in the universe, materially unverifiable in the stream of time. — E.L. Doctorow

I don't remember being a child, and that's why I think I'm so child-like now in my unending curiosity and approach to life. — Marianne Wiggins

My mom did a really good job teaching me about sunscreen. She's savvy when it comes to all things moisturizing and wrinkle-preventing. Even early on as a kid, I thought to myself, Why do I need to do this? I don't have wrinkles. I'm a child. But my mom was in the preventative mind-set and that helped me. — Brittany Snow

Jerott's eyes and Philippa's met. 'When I meet my friend,' said Jerott Blyth carefully, 'there is likely to be a detonation which will take the snow off Mont Blanc. I advise you to seek other auspices. Philippa, I think we should go down below.'

'To swim?' said that unprepossessing child guilelessly. 'I can stand on my head.'

'Oh, Christ,' said Jerott morosely. 'Why in hell did you come?' The brown eyes within the damp, dun-coloured hair inspected him narrowly.

'Because you need a woman,' said Philippa finally. 'And I'm the nearest thing to it that you're likely to get. It was very short notice. — Dorothy Dunnett

My child, it will be better for you if you accept my decisions without complaint. Do not ask me to defend my actions or to explain why one person is favored and another seems slighted. The answers to these questions go far beyond your comprehension. — Thomas A Kempis

Pets, he says, are trapped in a state from which there is no escape. "Domestication has essentially created a mentally disabled child bred to be dependent on us. My dogs will never get to the point where they'll become wolves and live the way they're supposed to live." We wonder why our pets are neurotic, he says, why dogs chew themselves raw and cats shred the drapes. "It's because they're not supposed to be living with us. They exist in this netherworld between humans and animals. — David Grimm

Nature made us individuals, as she did the flowers and the pebbles; but we are afraid to be peculiar, and so our society resembles a bag of marbles, or a string of mold candles. Why should we all dress after the same fashion? The frost never paints my windows twice alike. — Lydia M. Child

Before there was Cocaine or vodka or sex or any of that, there was fantasy. There was escape. That was my first addiction. I remember being a little kid and imagining everything different, myself different. How did I get the idea in my head at age eight that everything was better somewhere else? Why would a child have a hole inside that can't get full no matter what she does? The real world could never make me happy, so I retreated to the world inside my head. And as I grew, as the real world proved itself more and more painful, the fantasy world expanded. — Amy Reed

I lay in my bed night after night staring at the ceiling and thinking, Why have I survived the war? Why was I the last person in my immediate family to be alive? I didn't know. — Ishmael Beah

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

Why do we not stay here forever?" Myrina had once asked her grandmother, when she'd been very young.
Hati had laughed. "I wish we could, my honey-child. This place is perfect, but it wouldn't stay perfect for long if we lived here. The waters would run dry, the grazing would be used up and the ground poisoned with our mess; we'd destroy what gives us so much pleasure. — Theresa Tomlinson

he leaned down and pressed his face to my belly.

"You're having my baby," he announced against my skin.

I felt my eyes well up and tears drip down my face. finally. He'd finally said it.

"Sure am," I replied, my hoarse voice belying the nonchalance of my words.

"I'm going to do my best, okay?" he said nervously. "I promise. I'll be a good dad to him."

"You're already a good dad."

But to this baby," he replied, lifting his face and pressing his hand to my belly. "I'm going to be a good dad to this baby."

"I never doubted that."

"I did," he confessed, his head rising to shamefully meet my eyes.

The truth of his words hit me like a ton of bricks, and I finally understood why he'd ignored the proof of our child for so long.

I nodded once, and he nodded back, as if, without words, we were making a pact then and there to take care of this baby we hadn't planned for or wanted. — Nicole Jacquelyn

It was not easy for my mother, being a struggling actress and raising a child. We were these two sort of vagabonds, never knowing where the money was going to come from. She always says she couldn't afford a babysitter, which is why she put me on the stage. — Christina Applegate

Why are you wailing away? What is the matter with you?"
"I was playing and - " and her lip quivered as she spoke, " - and it was cloudy, and then - " a sniff, " - and then, as I was playing, the sun came out."
I gave her a flat look. "You're crying because the sun came out?"
"Yes," she moped, wiping the tears from her eyes, "the sun came out, and now - " she heaved, " - and now, it's hot! I don't like it when it's hot. Being hot is dumb!"
I immediately absolved her of all previous sins. I slumped over the sill and gave her as much sympathy as my now warm face allowed. "Yes, child, being hot is very dumb indeed. Very well, you have a reason for crying. But then why are you outside?"
"Because it was too hot inside and mommy won't let me have ice cream."
"Well, there is your problem. You must get an air conditioner and a new mother. — Michelle Franklin

One night I dreamed a dream.
I was walking along the beach with my Lord. Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to me and one to my Lord.
When the last scene of my life shot before me I looked back at the footprints in the sand. There was only one set of footprints. I realized that this was at the lowest and saddest times of my life. This always bothered me and I questioned the Lord about my dilemma.
"Lord, You told me when I decided to follow You, You would walk and talk with me all the way. But I'm aware that during the most troublesome times of my life there is only one set of footprints. I just don't understand why, when I need You most, You leave me."
He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you, never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you. — Margaret Fishback Powers

How should anything be sacred to an advertiser?" demanded Ingleby, helping himself to four lumps of sugar. "We spend our whole time asking intimate questions of perfect strangers and it naturally blunts our finer feelings. 'Mother! Has your Child Learnt Regular Habits?' 'Are you Troubled with Fullness after Eating?' 'Are you satisfied about your Drains?' 'Are you Sure that your Toilet-Paper is Germ-free?' 'Your most Intimate Friends dare not Ask you this question.' 'Do you Suffer from Superfluous Hair?' 'Do you Like them to Look at your Hands?' 'Do you ever ask yourself about Body-Odour?' 'If anything Happened to You, would your Loved Ones be Safe?' 'Why Spend so much Time in the Kitchen?' 'You think that Carpet is Clean - but is it?' 'Are you a Martyr to Dandruff?' Upon my soul, I sometimes wonder why the long-suffering public doesn't rise up and slay us. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Desford said abruptly: "How old are you, my child? Sixteen? Seventeen?"
"Oh, no, I am much older than that!" she replied. "I'm as old as Lucasta - all but a few weeks!"
"Then why are you not downstairs dancing with the rest of them?" he demanded. "You must surely be out!"
"No, I'm not," she said. "I don't suppose I ever shall be, either. Unless my papa turns out not to be dead, and comes home to take care of me himself. But I don't think that at all likely, and even if he did come home it wouldn't be of the least use, because he seems never to have sixpence to scratch with. I am afraid he is not a very respectable person. My aunt says he was obliged to go abroad on account of being monstrously in debt." She sighed, and said wistfully: "I know that one ought not to criticize one's father, but I can't help feeling that it was just a little thoughtless of him to abandon me. — Georgette Heyer

Let's say you and a small child go to a magic show, where things are made to float in the air. Which of you would have the most fun?"
"I probably would."
"And why would that be?"
"Because I would know how impossible it all is."
"So ... for the child it's no fun to see the laws of nature being defied before it has learned what they are."
"I guess that's right."
"And we are still at the crux of Hume's philosophy of experience. He would have added that the child has not yet become a slave of the expectations of habit; he is thus the more open-minded of you two. I wonder if the child is not also the greater philosopher? He comes utterly without preconceived opinions. And that, my dear Sophie, is the philosopher's most distinguishing virtue. The child perceives the world as it is, without putting more into things than he experiences — Jostein Gaarder

Why target two and a half million innocent newborns and children?" Barbara Loe Fisher asks of the hep B vaccine. The implication behind the word innocent is that only those who are not innocent need protection from disease. All of us who grew up during the AIDS epidemic were exposed to the idea that AIDS was a punishment for homosexuality, promiscuity, and addiction. But if disease is a punishment for anything, it is only a punishment for being alive. When I was a child, I asked my father what causes cancer and he paused for a long moment before saying, "Life. Life causes cancer." I took this as an artful dodge until I read Siddhartha Mukherjee's history of cancer, in which he argues not only that life causes cancer but that cancer is us. "Down to their innate molecular core," Mukherjee writes, "cancer cells are hyperactive, survival-endowed, scrappy, fecund, inventive copies of ourselves." And this, he notes, "is not a metaphor. — Eula Biss

-ask you to keep an eye on her, keep her safe, and you allow my child to be used in that!"
"Flatten your fur, Weiryn," replied the badger. "What makes you think I had a choice?"
"The Great Ones can find another instrument! Why didn't you tell them so?"
"I did tell them, you horn-headed idiot. They didn't listen. She didn't listen. If you have a complaint, you take it up with the Graveyard Hag. — Tamora Pierce

But say, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a sacred 'Yes.' For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred 'Yes' is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers his own world. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I hold my daughter in my arms and thank God for bringing her to me. If the standard route for creating a family had worked for me, I wouldn't have met this child. I needed to know her. I needed to be her mother. I know now why all those events happened. Or didn't happen. So I could meet this little girl. She is, in every way, my daughter. I am carrying my Funny Gift from God and all is good. — Nia Vardalos

Do you dislike Children? I ask, entertained at the little one's cleverness in dodging capture attempts.
"I don't dislike them, nor do I like them. I've never understood why one must love children simply because they are children. I don't love people because they are people; in fact, I rarely like any people at all. If a child is somehow deserving of admiration, I certainly won't deny it, but why hand it out like candy on Queen's Day?"
I laugh, surprising him.
"Do you think me terribly cruel, then?"
"Actually, I agree. It is another great fault of mine my mother endeavored to correct. Children in general I've never cared for, though individual children I love very much."
-Quote from "Illusions of Fate" by Kiersten White p.17 — Kiersten White

God's purpose for my life resided not so much in what I did as in how I did it. It didn't matter whether God gave me a large role or a tiny one; I could still have impact if I could learn to do one thing - to love people in whatever circumstance I found myself. Why? Because love lasts. Because love never fails. Because love does not envy, and it never boasts. It is neither proud nor rude. Love is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes. Love never gives up. God is love. Love, in fact, is the hardest, most powerful thing in the world. Whether driving a child to school, leading a church, cleaning a bathroom, heading up a multinational corporation, or washing feet, love is the secret to making a lasting impact. — Ann Spangler

Hello,' he said, his voice and smile pleasant.
'You can't touch me!' I sat up and pulled the covers over myself.
'Yes about that. You need to negate the command.'
'Excuse me?'
He looked at me patiently, like he was explaining something to a stubborn child. 'You need to break that command.'
'And why on earth would I ever want to do that?' I glared at him. Lunatic.
'Because I wasn't finished.'
'Oh, no, I really think that you were.' I held up my wrist. It still bore the scarlet mark of his hand and, to my eyes at least, was bright against the light of the lamp. Then, since I was holding up my hand anyway, I flipped him off.
'You're going to need more.'
'Well, that's easy.' I held up my other hand and flipped him off with that one, too. — Kiersten White

I have heard people say that the short story was one of the most difficult literary forms, and I've always tried to decide why people feel this way about what seems to me to be one of the most natural and fundamental ways of human expression. After all, you begin to hear and tell stories when you're a child, and there doesn't seem to be anything very complicated about it. I suspect that most of you have been telling stories all your lives, and yet here you sit - come to find out how to do it.
Then last week, after I had written down some of these serene thoughts to use here today, my calm was shattered when I was sent seven of your manuscripts to read.
After this experience, I found myself ready to admit, if not that the short story is one of the most difficult literary forms, at least that it is more difficult for some than for others. — Flannery O'Connor

It's not just the look, the cost, and the time involved in putting sunscreen on a child, it's the battle. My kids have no idea why they would have to wait to have fun while they are smeared with chemicals all over their face and body. They scream. They cry. "It burns!" The process of applying sunscreen just highlights the preposterousness of raising pale kids on a planet that revolves around a hot burning star that emits poisonous UV rays. I can never tell if the concerned looks from strangers are because they think I am torturing my children or because I am dressed like an out-of-shape Superman at the beach. Does anyone know where I can get a red swim cape? — Jim Gaffigan

I'm an only child, so I never had sisters to tell me what I should like based on my gender. I liked what the boys were doing and thought: 'Why let them have all the fun?' — Rhianna Pratchett

To observe is not to not feel - in fact, it is to put yourself at the mercy of feeling, like the child's warm skin meeting the cold air of midnight. My own children, too, have been roused from the unconsciousness of childhood; theirs too is the pain and the gift of awareness. 'I have two homes,' my daughter said to me one evening, clearly and carefully, 'and I have no home.' To suffer and to know what it is that you suffer: how can that be measured against its much-prized opposite, the ability to be happy without knowing why? — Rachel Cusk

Ah! Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child - why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong and self-controlled? I would like to weep and be comforted too, indeed I am little more than a child; in the wardrobe still hang short, boy's trousers - it is such a little time ago, why is it over? — Erich Maria Remarque

Why did I think back then, that happiness was always just ahead in the future, when I would be an adult, able to make my own decisions, go my own way, be my own person? Why had it seemed that being a child was never enough? — V.C. Andrews

For a time, it would work well. then it worked less and my pain was more. I would go through wild bouts of depression, horrible comedowns. I understand why kids kill themselves. I absolutely do. You feel terrible. You feel soul-less. "I'll never do it to my child". — Channing Tatum

In my mind, numbers and words are far more than squiggles of ink on a page. They have form, color, texture and so on. They come alive to me, which is why as a young child I thought of them as my 'friends.' — Daniel Tammet

I can't get it why did I name my book series, I'm talking about "The Life Of One kid". I'm talking about the last word "Kid"?? Aren't your curious I'm with British Accent and putting "Kid" the American word for child the last? I'm also curious I still don't know, I really don't know why. Child sounds like a baby maybe that's all, kid sounds like a child in aobut 7-8 years old! — Deyth Banger

I had a happy, dramafree youth, growing up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Dallas, Texas. The only thing that was slightly unusual compared to most of my friends was that I was an only child ... I don't think that's why my parents gave me a dummy, at least they've never copped to it. — Jeff Dunham

I think the love between a child and parent is wonderful. You know, Mei ... I haven't seen my mother for over two years. I used to live with her ... but now I live with my father. I used to be sad and wonder why it happened ... but parents have a lot of things they have to deal with too. I saw how they were suffering ... and I know they both love me a lot. You can't let loneliness harden your heart. Mei, you know ... Misuzu loves you, don't you? — Bisco Hatori

You're asking yourself, Can I give this child the best possible upbringing and keep her out of harm's way her whole life long? The answer is no, you can't. But nobody else can either. Not a state home, that's for sure. For heaven's sake, the best they can do is turn their heads while the kids learn to pick locks and snort hootch, and then try to keep them out of jail. Nobody can protect a child from the world. That's why it's the wrong thing to ask, if you're really trying to make a decision."
So what's the right thing to ask?"
Do I want to try? Do I think it would be interesting, maybe even enjoyable in the long run, to share my life with this kid and give her my best effort and maybe, when all's said and done, end up with a good friend. — Barbara Kingsolver

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only.
This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord,
You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?"
The Lord replied, "The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you. — Mary Stevenson

I am far from a perfect dad. And I always will be. But I'm a damn good dad, and my son will always feel bigger than anything life can throw at him. Why? Because I get it. I get the power a dad has in a child's life, and in a child's level of self-belief. I get that everything I ever do and ever say to my son will be absorbed, for good or for bad. — Dan Pearce

A mother's body against a child's body makes a place. It says you are here. Without this body against your body there is no place. I envy people who miss their mother. Or miss a place or know something called home. The absence of a body against my body created a gap, a hole, a hunger. This hunger determined my life ... The absence of a body against my body made attachment abstract. Made my own body dislocated and unable to rest or settle. A body pressed against your body is the beginning of nest. I grew up not in a home but in a kind of free fall of anger and violence that led to a life of constant movement, of leaving and falling. It is why at one point I couldn't stop drinking and fucking. Why I needed people to touch me all the time. It had less to do with sex than location. When you press against me, or put yourself inside me. When you hold me down or lift me up, when you lie on top of me and I can feel your weight, I exist. I am here. — Eve Ensler

Why does it always seem that I have only the shadow of my father? I'm like a child constantly grabbing at his coattails and missing. — Libba Bray

God, why do You love me?"
BECAUSE I AM LOVE.
"God, when do You love me?"
ALWAYS.
"How do You love me?"
WITH GRACE, PATIENCE, AND FORGIVENESS.
"God, am I good enough for You?"
MY PRECIOUS CHILD, YOU DON'T NEED TO BE.
"Why?"
BECAUSE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH THAT I GAVE MY ONLY SON, AND HE TOOK UPON HIS SHOULDERS THE AFFLICTIONS AND SINS OF THIS WORLD.
"God, when will I get to see You?"
AFTER YOU CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN ME.
"Then I will know You here, and in Heaven?"
YES, THEN YOU WILL KNOW ME HERE, AND IN HEAVEN.
"I love you, God."
He always replies,
I LOVED YOU YESTERDAY,
I LOVE YOU TODAY,
AND I WILL LOVE YOU TOMORROW.
~ excerpt from "Halo Found Hope" Chapter 21, HOPE FOUND — Helo Matzelle

Without realizing it, I fought to keep my two worlds separated. Without ever knowing why, I made sure, whenever possible that nothing passed between the compartmentalization I had created between the day child and the night child.
p26 — Marilyn Van Derbur

I'm not anti conceptual art. I don't think painting must be revived, exactly. Art reflects life, and our lives are full of algorithms, so a lot of people are going to want to make art that's like an algorithm. But my language is painting, and painting is the opposite of that. There's something primal about it. It's innate, the need to make marks. That's why, when you're a child, you scribble. — Jenny Saville

Either the gods have power or they don't. If they don't,
why pray? If they do, then why not pray for something else
instead of for things to happen or not to happen? Pray not to
feel fear. Or desire, or grief. If the gods can do anything, they
can surely do that for us. - But those are things the gods left up to me.
Then isn't it better to do what's up to you - like a free man
- than to be passively controlled by what isn't, like a slave
or beggar? And what makes you think the gods don't care
about what's up to us?
Start praying like this and you'll see.
Not "some way to sleep with her" - but a way to stop
wanting to.
Not "some way to get rid of him" - but a way to stop
trying.
Not "some way to save my child" - but a way to lose your
fear.
Redirect your prayers like that, and watch what happens. — Marcus Aurelius

My parents didn't grow up here or anything. They chose to live in this nowhere town. Why? Because it was named after Hannibal of Carthage. Their basic train of thought was this: Hannibal's Rest? And we're naming our child after Alexander the Great? MARVELOUS. Ah, the history, it tickles.

Sometimes I wanted to beat my parents over the head with a frying pan. — Francesca Zappia

I was already planning to return home because it's getting harder and harder to hide my morning sickness.If there were another option,guess what? I'd take it just to spite you! But marriage to the most unfaithful skirt-chaser in London isn't an option, and you've already had my answer. It's not going to happen."
"It will," he insisted.
"Ha!"
"You don't think so? Then I guess you won't mind when your pregnancy is announced in the newspapers."
She sucked in her breath, livid with rage. "Why would you do that?"
"Because you've finally inserted some doubt in my mind,and as long as there's even a speck of it,let me assure you, I will be damned before I allow any child of mine to go to strangers."
"Why don't you just be damned! — Johanna Lindsey

To a child who dies, and to the parents of this child, will you speak, if religion consoles them, in praise of atheism? That one does not mistake: that, to my mind, does not prove anything against atheism and much against religion. "The heart of a heartless world, said Marx, the soul of soulless conditions." It is misery that makes religion, and it is why this one is miserable. Who would prohibit opium to a dying man? And what are we, out of oblivion or entertainment, anything else but dying? — Andre Comte-Sponville

How can so much beauty hide such a bruised and steely heart, and why must I love him, why must I lean in my weariness upon his irresistible yet indomitable strength? Is he not the wizend funeral spirit of a dead man in a child's clothes? — Anne Rice

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

I had never seen her this way before, and I wondered why until I realized it was the tattoo; I saw, finally, there was magic at work here that was darker and deeper than I had imagined, that the tattoo was like putting a pair of spectacles on a child with poor vision. I stared up at the camp hill, my heart in my throat, and wondered what everything would look like, now that I could see. — Genevieve Valentine

I pretended it was nothing. That day I told you about my baby, and why I had had an abortion. It would have damaged other lives. I had killed my own real baby ten years before, but it remains my living child, and will always be so. It is worse when there is no grave. I wanted you to recognize its existence. No one else does, and that is what I cannot bear. (12) — Sarah Ferguson

When I was a child, I used to look at the sky and wonder how were stars fixed on the canopy and why didn't they fall on Earth. I also wondered why they disappeared in day time. When I grew up, all my questions got answered, but I lost my innocence. — Tarif Naaz

Wesley: To the pain means the first thing you will lose will be your feet below the ankles. Then your hands at the wrists. Next your nose. The next thing you will lose will be your left eye followed by your right.
Prince Humperdink: And then my ears, I understand let's get on with it.
Wesley: WRONG. Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God! What is that thing," will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever. — William Goldman

All my life I have been intensely repelled by the idea of 'making an effort'. I hate this idea today as much as I did as a child. I don't know why I hate it so much; I just do. — Raymond Smullyan

When I was a young child my folks would ask me why I was rocking back and forth and I'd answer "cause of the music in my head!" — Geoff Zanelli

I was a very shy child. I remember being in a kindergarten open house with my mother and children saying 'Hi' to me, and I still remember feeling this way - but I don't know why - but I wouldn't even say 'Hi' back. I was that shy. — Jim Parsons

The teacher was asking her students what their parents did for a living, and Timmy stood up and said, "My daddy's a doctor and my mommy's a doctor too." And little Sarah stood up and said, "My mommy's an engineer and my daddy's an accountant." And then little Billy stands up and says, "My mommy's a writer and my daddy plays the piano in a whorehouse." The teacher was horrified and later she called Billy's father, and said, "Why would you ever tell your child a thing like that?" And the father said, "Well, actually I'm a defense lawyer. But how do you explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old? — Garrison Keillor

She had my back, supported me. This is the role of the mother, and in that visit I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known. In Stockholm, my mother shed her protective love down around me and without knowing why people sensed that I had value. I — Maya Angelou

You're looking for sexual tidbits as a female child, and the only ones that present themselves depict child rape or other violations (all my favorite books in my preteen years: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Clan of the Cave Bear, The World According to Garp, as well as the few R-rated movies I was allowed to see - Fame, most notably, with its indelible scene of Irene Cara being asked to take her shirt off and suck her thumb by a skeezy photographer who promises to make her a star), then your sexuality will form around that fact. There is no control group. I don't even want to talk about "female sexuality" until there is a control group. And there never will be. — Maggie Nelson

I looked at her quizzically. "No, why would you think so?"
She gave me a knowing smile. "'Cause he's never brought a girl here before, child. Not one who didn't need my help, leastways."
Oh! That pleased me, but I quashed it. "It's not like that. We, ah, we kind of work together. I'm not his, er, what I mean is, he's all yours if you want him!" I finished in an insane babble.
There was a disgruntled grunt from upstairs that didn't come from the girl. I cringed, but it was too late to take it back. — Jeaniene Frost

And finally it is Thursday and the day of my guitar lesson. I jump out of bed as though it's Christmas morning and I am six years old and a child of the Brangelina. I am in front of the mirror fixing my make up when Brodie waltzes in and plonks herself on my bed.

'Why do you look pretty?' she asks. — Sarah Alderson

The hand of Heaven is on me, be it far from me to struggle, if my secret sins have pull'd this curse upon me, lend me tears now to wash me white, that I may feel a child-like innocence within my breast; which once perform'd, O give me leave to stand as fix'd as constancy her self, my eyes set here unmov'd, regardless of the world though thousand miseries incompass me. — Francis Beaumont

I won but I wasn't like Pat. Because - and why this should be I'll never know - I never did a thing that wasn't somehow touched with selfish, furtive hunger, with a private, annihilating need for recognition. Because I'm like a child in a fairy tale cursed from birth, and there has never been anything I can put my hand to without tainting it, no triumph so great or solemn that it doesn't turn spoiled and ridiculous. Because, sooner or later, the darkness always gets in. — Austin Grossman