“All children in those small-town, unhurried days had a vast inner life going on in the movies. Children were allowed to go without chaperone in the afternoons. My sense of making fictional comedy undoubtedly first caught its spark from the antic pantomime of the silent screen, and from having a kindred soul to laugh with.” ChildrenComedySilentLaughMoviesInner LifePantomimeKindred Soul Book:On Writing Source: On Writing
“When, sometime later, Laurel asked about the bell, her mother replied calmly that how good a bell was depended on the distance away your children had gone.” ChildrenBell Book:The Optimist's Daughter Source: The Optimist's Daughter
“When one of us (children) caught measles or whooping cough and we were isolated in bad upstairs, we wrote notes to each other perhaps on the hour. Our devoted mother would pass them for us, after first running them in a hot oven to kill the germs. They came into our hands curled up and warm, sometimes scorched like toast.” ChildrenMotherBedSickNotesGermsToastOven Book:On Writing Source: On Writing
“When I was a child and the snow fell, my mother always rushed to the kitchen and made snow ice cream and divinity fudge-egg whites, sugar and pecans, mostly. It was a lark then and I always associate divinity fudge with snowstorms.” ChildrenMadeMotherSnowIceKitchenDivinityEggsSugarCreamAssociatesIce CreamLarksFudgeSnowstormsPecans Book:Occasions: Selected Writings Source: Occasions: Selected Writings
“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.” KnowsChildrenLongStoriesFormWaitingListeningGoes OnHolesStorytellingMiceParticipationEldersWaiting And Hoping Book:One Writer's Beginnings Source: One Writer's Beginnings
“Children, like animals use all their senses to discover the world. Then artists come along and discover it the same way...Or now and then we'll hear from an artisit who's never lost it.” WorldWayChildrenUseArtistLostAnimalSensesNow And Then Author:Eudora Welty
