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Childhood Quotes

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Childhood Quotes

“I think back to when I was growing up in Fort Worth, Texas, in the 1950s, during the [John] McCarthy era, with two parents who founded a Unitarian Church. We lived in a little frame house, and my bedroom was just down the hall from the kitchen. My favorite memories of childhood are of the smell of coffee wafting into my bedroom as my parents and their friends talked about the big, important things - about racism and about how to move our country to live its values.”

ThinkingLittlesTwoImportantCountryBigsMovingValuesHouseParentChurchMemoriesGrowing UpGrowingChildhoodRacismImportant ThingsMy FavoriteSmellCoffeeOur CountryErasKitchenHallsTexasBedroomChildhood MemoriesFortsUnitarianFavorite MemoriesUnitarian ChurchFort Worth
Author:Frances Moore Lappé
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“With "Margaret," I remember clearly it was, you know because I did remember it clearly. I was young. I was young in terms of experience and what did I know about and I had an incredible memory from my own childhood. And so it never occurred to me to write for any other age group. And I thought I'm going to write a book and I'm going to tell the truth.”

KnowsWritingBookAgeRememberYoungTermMemoriesMy OwnGroupsChildhoodIncrediblesTelling The Truth
Author:Judy Blume
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“I thought back to a childhood memory: the first dead body I'd ever seen was the body of an immigrant washed up on shore. I went back to that memory. As a child, you can't process these types of images in a healthy way. I don't think anyone can, really. So I explored that. These people were buried in mass graves. I don't know if their families ever heard from them again.”

PeopleThinkingChildrenMemoriesChildhoodHealthyChildhood Memories
Author:Kareem Mortimer
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“Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.”

ThinkingKnowsLifeWellsSeemsHappensRememberDeathCertainTimeDiesMemoriesNumbersWatchesKnowingFiveFourChildhoodInspirational LifeMoonLive LifeLife And DeathMore TimeAfternoonWasting TimeComposerLiving My LifeEnjoy LifeLimitlessLife Is ShortLife Is Too ShortChildhood MemoriesFull MoonSmall NumbersAppreciate LifeDon't Waste Your TimeTime FliesLive Life HappyConceivingLife Being ShortMoon Rise
Author:Paul Bowles
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“The mother memories that are closest to my heart are the small gentle ones that I have carried over from the days of my childhood. They are not profound, but they have stayed with me through life, and when I am very old, they will still be near . . . Memories of mother drying my tears, reading aloud, cutting cookies and singing as she did, listening to prayers I said as I knelt with my forehead pressed against her knee, tucking me in bed and turning down the light. They have carried me through the years and given my life such a firm foundation that it does not rock beneath flood or tempest.”

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Author:Margaret Sanger
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“You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all. If a man carries many such memories into life with him, he is saved for the rest of his days. And even if only one good memory is left in our hearts, it may also be the instrument of our salvation one day.”

IfsMenLifeHeartMayBeautifulLeftMemoriesChildhoodOne DayInstrumentsSacredSalvationSavedCarrieGood MemoriesBest Education
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“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
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“We hug, but there are no tears. For every awful thing that's been said and done, she is my sister. Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life. She is the only person left in the world who shares my memories of our childhood, our parents, our Shanghai, our struggles, our sorrows, and, yes, even our moments of happiness and triumph. My sister is the one person who truly knows me, as I know her. The last thing May says to me is 'When our hair is white, we'll still have our sister love.”

KnowsWorldMayPersonsSaidStillsDoneMomentsLastsDiesLeftGrowsParentMemoriesWhiteStruggleGrowing UpShareChildhoodTearsHairSorrowDaughterAwfulTriumphMy SisterHugKnow MeSisterSaid And DoneShanghaiSister LoveMoments Of Happiness
Book:Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy: Two Bestselling Novels
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“Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.' That's a rather broad idea,' I remarked. One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature,' he answered.”

IfsWorldHumansLongIdeasSoulRememberMemoriesRaceChildhoodCenturySpeechAppreciateClaimsHuman RaceBroadsVagueMistyStudy In ScarletPower Of Speech
Author:Arthur Conan Doyle
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“Travel releases spontaneity. You become a godlike creature full or choice, free to visit the stately pleasure domes, make love in the morning, sketch a bell tower, read a history of Byzantium, stare for one hour at the face of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Madonna dei fusi.' You open, as in childhood, and--for a time--receive this world. There's visceral aspect, too--the huntress who is free. Free to go, free to return home bringing memories to lay on the hearth.”

WorldHomeFacesChoicesHoursMemoriesPleasureMorningChildhoodThis WorldReturnCreaturesAspectLaysReleaseStaringBellsTowersMaking LoveSpontaneityOne HourVisceralDomesGodlikeLeonardoHuntressByzantium
Author:Frances Mayes
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“At the most basic level, therefore, secure attachments in both childhood and adulthood are established by two individual's sharing a nonverbal focus on the energy flow (emotional states) and a verbal focus on the information-processing aspects (representational processes of memory and narrative) of mental life. The matter of the mind matters for secure attachments.”

MindTwoMatterStatesIndividualEnergyProcessMemoriesLevelsFocusChildhoodInformationEmotionalAspectFlowSecureNarrativeAttachmentAdulthoodProcessingNonverbalEnergy FlowInformation Processing
Author:Daniel J. Siegel
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“What he wanted was not just to hear about Hailsham, but to remember Hailsham, just like it had been his own childhood. He knew he was close to completing and so that's what he was doing: getting me to describe things to him, so they'd really sink in, so that maybe during those sleepless nights, with the drugs and the paint and the exhaustion, the line would blur between what were my memories and what were his.”

WantedRememberNightLinesMemoriesChildhoodDrugPaintExhaustionBlurCompletingSleepless NightsNever Let Me Go
Book:Never Let Me Go
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“Alice! A childish story take, And with a gentle hand, Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined In Memory's mystic band, Like pilgrim's withered wreath of flowers Plucked in far-off land.”

StoriesDreamHandsMemoriesLandChildhoodFlowerBandLaysMysticPilgrimPluckWitheredGentilesWreathsChildhood Dreams
Book:Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and What the Tortoise Said to Achilles and Other Riddles
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“This tug-of-war often obscures what's also happening between us. I am your mother, the first mile of your road. Me and all my obvious and hidden limitations. That means that in addition to possibly wrecking you, I have the chance to give to you what was given to me: a decent childhood, more good memories than bad, some values, a sense of tribe, a run at happiness. You can't imagine how seriously I take that - even as I fail you. Mothering you is the first thing of consequence that I have ever done.”

GivingFirstsMeanWarDoneRunningMotherValuesGivenMemoriesChanceImagineFailingChildhoodHappeningsConsequenceObviousMilesLimitationDecentTribesMotheringGood MemoriesTug Of War
Author:Kelly Corrigan
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“I don't know where to start," one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O' Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is Okay if it is well done. Don't worry about doing it well yet, though. Just get it down.”

IfsKnowsWritingWellsSaidDoneEnoughMemoriesWorryChildhoodStudentsMaterialsOkayHorribleNosesSurvivedGrimWell DonePlugs
Author:Anne Lamott
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“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
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“But I’ve been turning over in my mind the question of nostalgia, and whether I suffer from it. I certainly don’t get soggy at the memory of some childhood knickknack; nor do I want to deceive myself sentimentally about something that wasn’t even true at the time—love of the old school, and so on. But if nostalgia means the powerful recollection of strong emotions—and a regret that such feelings are no longer present in our lives—then I plead guilty.”

IfsWantMindMeanFeelingsSchoolSufferingStrongMemoriesPowerfulEmotionOur LivesChildhoodRegretNostalgiaGuiltyDeceivingRecollectionOld SchoolTime LoveStrong Emotions
Author:Julian Barnes
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“The psychoanalytic liberation of memory explodes the rationality of the repressed individual. As cognition gives way to re-cognition, the forbidden images and impulses of childhood begin to tell the truth that reason denies.”

WayGivingReasonIndividualMemoriesChildhoodDenyLiberationImpulseTelling The TruthRationalityForbiddenCognitionRepressedPsychoanalytic
Book:Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud
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“All of us carry around countless bags of dusty old knickknacks dated from childhood: collected resentments, long list of wounds of greater or lesser significance, glorified memories, absolute certainties that later turn out to be wrong. Humans are emotional pack rats. These bags define us.”

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Book:Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
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“Some of my relatives held on to imagined memories the way homeless people hold onto lottery tickets. Nostalgia was their crack cocaine, if you will, and my childhood was littered with the consequences of their addiction : unserviceable debts, squabbles over inheritances, the odd alcoholic or suicide.”

PeopleIfsWayMemoriesChildhoodConsequenceSuicideAddictionDebtNostalgiaOddCracksTicketsHomelessInheritanceAlcoholicsCocaineLotteryHomeless PeopleLottery TicketSquabbles
Book:The Reluctant Fundamentalist
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“Music is the one art we all have inside. We may not be able to play an instrument, but we can sing along or clap or tap our feet. Have you ever seen a baby bouncing up and down in the crib in time to some music? When you think of it, some of that baby's first messages from his or her parents may have been lullabies, or at least the music of their speaking voices. All of us have had the experience of hearing a tune from childhood and having that melody evoke a memory or a feeling. The music we hear early on tends to stay with us all our lives.”

ThinkingFirstsMayHas BeensArtPlayFeelingsAbleParentVoiceMemoriesOur LivesFeetChildhoodBabyMessagesMusic IsInstrumentsHearingTunesMelodyUp And DownEvokeLullaby
Book:The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
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“I can truly say, after an experience of seventy years, that all the cares and anxieties, the trials and disappointments of my whole life, are light, when balanced with my sufferings in childhood and youth from the theological dogmas which I sincerely believed. . . . The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstitions of the Christian religion.”

YearsI CanSoulWholeLightCareChristianYoungReligionSufferingMemoriesMy OwnChildhoodYouthAnxietyDisappointmentWhole LifeTrialsSuperstitionsBalancedDogmaSeventiesSincerelyTheological
Author:Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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“There are vivid memories from my childhood-what we had to go through because of low wages and the conditions, basically because there was no union. I suppose if I wanted to be fair I could say that I'm trying to settle a personal score. I could dramatize it by saying that I want to bring social justice to farm workers. But the truth is that I went through a lot of hell, and a lot of people did. If we can even the score a little for the workers then we are doing something. Besides, I don't know any other work I like to do better than this. I really don't.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWantTryingLittlesWantedSocialMemoriesJusticeHellChildhoodConditionsTruth IsLowsCommitmentFairsSocial JusticeUnionsWorkersSettlingScoreFarmsWagesVividVivid Memories
Book:An Organizer's Tale: Speeches
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“Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.”

LoveYearsMemoriesVisionLandChildhoodMinesSweetMountainSummerMassThirdsTownsMadComplexesDinnerSmellBeachMemorableUnexpectedLakesLeapPotScentFleetingPotatoesOur MemoriesAugustMomentaryPoignantMyrtleFamily DinnerSweet PotatoesSweet Memories
Author:Diane Ackerman
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