Quotessence
Home / Topics / Childhood Quotes

Childhood Quotes

Browse 4994 quotes about Childhood.

Related topics

ChildrenIfsPeopleThinkingWorldKnowsYearsWayParentAgeMemoriesMenKidsRememberDreamEarly ChildhoodOur ChildrenAdultsFeelsFirstsWantBookMotherShouldWritingHas BeensSchoolKindStoriesLongMadeGrowsYour ChildrenLooksMomentsPlayStillsFatherGrowing UpHappy ChildhoodTryingWantedDifferentLittlesAdulthoodHumansChildhood MemoriesFeelingsPersonsEndsMayWellsHomeRealGivingHeartYoungBelieveGrewLastsEnoughFeltLostMindNeedsWholeGrew UpTwoChildhood DreamsFatherhoodMy OwnWould BeMeanImportantYouthPastAbleFactsFantasyHouseCertainSeemsSelfBornI CanWonderAdolescenceGrowingIdeasSometimesForeverHelpingLifeOld AgeJoyBehindsFormProblemArtDifficultmore

Childhood Quotes

“We cannot know the consequences of suppressing a child's spontaneity when he is just beginning to be active. We may even suffocate life itself. That humanity which is revealed in all its intellectual splendor during the sweet and tender age of childhood should be respected with a kind of religious veneration. It is like the sun which appears at dawn or a flower just beginning to bloom. Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life.”

KnowsShouldKindMayChildrenHelpingAgeSchoolHumanityReligiousSunChildhoodSweetFlowerIntellectualConsequenceActiveDawnSpontaneitySplendorMontessoriSuppressingVeneration
Author:Maria Montessori
Create image

“My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent's rooms are empty. Those children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood. By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says 'PRIVATE--GROWNUPS KEEP OUT': a child sprawled on the bed, reading.”

IfsKnowsChildrenBookHomeReadingParentWalksPleasureRoomsDoorsChildhoodBedDaughterEmptyTablesSevenComplainingExpensiveGradesMy DaughterContrastApartmentShelvesToiletsTanksGrownups
Author:Anne Fadiman
Create image

“You stayed around your children as long as you could, inhaling the ambient gold shavings of their childhood, and at the last minute you tried to see them off into life and hoped that the little piece of time you’d given them was enough to prevent them from one day feeling lonely and afraid and hopeless. You wouldn’t know the outcome for a long time.”

KnowsChildrenLittlesLongEnoughFeelingsLastsGivenPiecesChildhoodMinutesOne DayLong TimeLonelyGoldYour ChildrenOutcomesHopelessFeeling LonelyLast MinuteShavingAmbient
Book:The Ten-Year Nap
Create image

“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.”

ThinkingChildrenGrowsEnjoyBehindsGrowing UpChildhoodGrew UpAdultsAgingInnocenceAdulthoodDayCarefreeKids Growing UpFrettingChildren Growing UpLoss Of InnocenceGrowing ChildrenChildren Innocence
Book:The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chonicle:
Create image

“But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting.”

IfsThinkingFirstsChildrenReasonNamesChildhoodTestsScientistExpecting
Book:So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Create image

“Presently it appears that people are mainly concerned with being well rested. Those capable of uninterrupted sleep are much admired. Unconsciousness is in great demand. This is the day of the milligram. The rigors of learning how to do long division have been a traditional part of childhood, just like learning to smoke. In fact, as far as I am concerned, the two go hand in hand. Any child who cannot do long division by himself does not deserve to smoke.”

PeopleWellsChildrenLongDoeHas BeensTwoFactsHandsSleepChildhoodDemandCapableDeserveConcernedTraditionalSmokeDivisionHand In HandUnconsciousnessRigor
Author:Fran Lebowitz
Create image

“Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.”

YearsHeartChildrenSpiritGrowsMemoriesChildhoodAnd LoveChristmasHolidayChildhood MemoriesKindredChristmas SpiritInspirational ChristmasChristmas DayMerry ChristmasChristmas HolidayChristmas TreeFunny ChristmasXmasChristmas ThoughtsBest ChristmasChristmas LoveHoliday SeasonChristmas SeasonChristmas CardChristmas MagicChristmas TimeShort ChristmasHoliday TraditionsReligious ChristmasChristmas Card GreetingsChristmas Holiday GreetingsFunny Christmas CardChristmas JoyFunny Merry ChristmasChristian ChristmasMeaning Of ChristmasChristmas SongBest HolidayChristmas GreetingsMerry Christmas CardsChristmas CheerInspirational HolidayTender HeartsChristmas PeaceGreat ChristmasMerry Christmas GreetingsWarm ChristmasHoliday CardHoliday SpiritMeaningful ChristmasPositive HolidayChristmas FriendshipReligious HolidayClassic ChristmasHoliday Greeting CardMerry Xmas FunnyChildren ChristmasGreat HolidayHoliday LoveHoliday CheerMemories And Love
Book:Laura Ingalls Wilder's Prairie Wisdom
Create image

“Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.”

FeelsYearsHeartChildrenLittlesLongDreamEyeRememberJoySimplePleasureChildhoodStrangeSorrowSummerTalesLong AgoLoving LifeWonderlandLittle SisterSummer DaysHappy SummerSimple JoysRemembering HerGrown Women
Book:Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
Create image

“Dance. Dance for the joy and breath of childhood. Dance for all children, including that child who is still somewhere entombed beneath the responsibility and skepticism of adulthood. Embrace the moment before it escapes from our grasp. For the only promise of childhood, of any childhood, is that it will someday end. And in the end, we must ask ourselves what we have given our children to take its place. And is it enough?”

ChildrenStillsEndsEnoughMomentsJoyAsksGivenParentResponsibilityChildhoodPromiseBreathsOur ChildrenEmbraceParentingIncludingSomedayAdulthoodSkepticism
Book:The Christmas Box Miracle: My Spiritual Journey of Destiny, Healing and Hope
Create image

“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

IfsMenChildrenHas BeensDesireReadingFoundFearSecretGrowing UpChildhoodTenIncludingTalesMaturityNovelistsFairyFiftyAshamedMatureReading BooksFairy TaleAdulthoodGetting OlderFairytaleChildishnessChildish Things
Book:On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature
Create image

“The essential and defining characteristic of childhood is not the effortless merging of dream and reality, but only alienation. There are no words for childhood's dark turns and exhalations. A wise child recognizes it and submits to the necessary consequences. A child who counts the cost is a child no longer.”

ChildrenDreamRealityTurnsDarkWiseChildhoodCostEssentialsConsequenceCharacteristicsSubmitDefiningAlienationEffortlessDreams And RealityMerging
Book:'Salem's Lot
Create image

“We are born one time only, we can never start a new life equipped with the experience we've gained from the previous one. We leave childhood without knowing what youth is, we marry without knowing what it is to be married, and even when we enter old age, we don't know what it is we're heading for: the old are innocent children innocent of thier old age. In that sense, man's world is the planet of inexperience.”

KnowsMenWorldChildrenAgeBornKnowingChildhoodYouthPlanetsMarriedInnocentOld AgeOne TimeNew LifeBeing MarriedHeadingsInexperienceInnocent Children
Author:Milan Kundera
Create image

“we have to listen to the child we once were, the child who still exists inside us. That child understands magic moments. We can stifle its cries, but we cannot silence its voice.The child we once were is still there. Blessed are the children, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.If we are not reborn if we cannot learn to look at life with the innocence and the enthusiasm o childhood it makes no sense to go on living.”

IfsLooksChildrenStillsMomentsHeavenVoiceSilenceMagicChildhoodCryGoes OnBlessedKingdomsEnthusiasmInnocenceRebornKingdom Of HeavenMagic Moments
Author:Paulo Coelho
Create image

“In this modern world where activity is stressed almost to the point of mania, quietness as a childhood need is too often overlooked. Yet a child's need for quietness is the same today as it has always been--it may even be greater--for quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.”

WorldNeedsMayChildrenStoriesTodaySongGreaterModernChildhoodAwarenessActivityQuietEssentialsModern WorldStressedOverlookedQuietnessSleepyManiaQuiet TimeChildren's LiteratureChildren Literature
Author:Margaret Wise Brown
Create image

“A Message to Children Who Have Read This Book - When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: a stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY.”

WantChildrenImportantRememberFunGrowsParentGrowing UpChildhoodPleaseDeserveParentingParenthoodRaising ChildrenDeservingScreenwritersParentalBeing A ParentChildren Growing UpRemember SomethingBad ParentingUnhappy Childhood
Author:Roald Dahl
Create image

“It is one thing to be a man's wife - quite another to be the mother of his children. In fact, once you become a mother, being a wife seems like a game you once played or a self-help book you were overly impressed with as a teenager that on second reading is puffy with common ideas. This was one of the many things I had learned since crossing over into the middle place - that sliver of time when childhood and parenthood overlap.”

MenChildrenBookIdeasSelfFactsHelpingSeemsMotherReadingGamesCommonWifeOne ThingChildhoodMiddleSelf HelpTeenagerParenthoodImpressedBe A ManCrossingsSelf Help BooksHelp BookCrossing Over
Book:The Middle Place
Create image

“So you go away from where you were afraid. Some stay; some go; it's a big difference, leaving the humiliations of childhood, the morbid fear. We didn't have much to say to each other, the ones that left and the ones that stayed. Children get shamed by fear but you can't tell the adults that; they don't care. They make children into dead things like they are. If there's something left alive in you, you run. You run from the poor little child on her knees; fear burned the skin off all right; she's still on her knees, dead and raw and tender.”

IfsChildrenLittlesStillsBigsCareRunningLeftDifferencesPoorAliveChildhoodAdultsSkinsLeavingDon't CareKneesGoing AwayBurnedHumiliationMorbid
Author:Andrea Dworkin
Create image

“Being sent to bed is a terrible command to all children, because it means the most public possible humiliation in front of adults, the confession that they bear the stigma of childhood, of being small and having a child's need for sleep.”

NeedsMeanChildrenSleepChildhoodFrontsBearsTerribleBedAdultsCommandConfessionHumiliationStigma
Book:The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig: Burning Secret, A Chess Story, Fear, Confusion, Journey into the Past
Create image

“I know what I really want for Christmas. I want my childhood back. Nobody is going to give me that. I might give at least the memory of it to myself if I try. I know it doesn't make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense, anyway? It is about a child, of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of or hearts for something wonderful to happen. A child who is impractical, unrealistic, simpleminded and terribly vulnerable to joy.”

IfsKnowsWantGivingTryingHeartChildrenLongMightHappensJoyWaitingMemoriesBehindsWonderfulDoorsChildhoodGive MeChristmasVulnerableMake SenseFar AwayLong Ago
Author:Robert Fulghum
Create image

“We are guilty of many errors and many faults, But our worst crime is abandoning the children, Neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, His blood is being made, And his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer 'Tomorrow.' His name is 'Today.'”

NeedsChildrenMadeTodayNamesWaitingAnswersBloodChildhoodWorstCrimeTomorrowRight NowErrorsFaultsBonesSensesGuiltyNeglectFountain
Author:Gabriela Mistral
Create image