Quotessence
Home / Topics / Nursery Rhymes Quotes

Nursery Rhymes Quotes

Browse 37 quotes about Nursery Rhymes.

Related topics

RhymeNurse

Nursery Rhymes Quotes

“In college I had a feminist botany professor who said that the properties of herbs have been documented largely by men, but the knowledge has been passed down in an oral tradition among women, one generation to the next. Even when girls were deemed unworthy of literacy, the rhymes they heard their mothers recite, like I borage give courage, or Nettle out, dock in, dock remove the nettle sting, made them bearers of a rich knowledge. The woman in a village who knew about herbs was called the Wise Woman.”

HerbsBotanyNursery RhymesWise WomanFeministic Discrimination
Book:The Marsh Queen
Create image

“Spring-Heeled Jack Is In The Lane by Stewart Stafford Go indoors, children, before dark falls, A fiend comes hideous and inhumane, Tell your mother not to answer the door, For Spring-Heeled Jack is in the lane. Is it spectre, beast or demon? A trick of light to fool the brain? Blue flames spew from hellish maw, Spring-Heeled Jack growls in the lane. No one can unsee its monstrous face, Nor its claws of steel that bloodstain, Its haunting cackle freezes victims, Spring-Heeled Jack leaps from the lane. © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”

ScaryParanormalSupernaturalGothicFolkloreNursery RhymesHorror PoetryNursery RhymeHorror PoemSpring Heeled Jack
Author:Stewart Stafford
Create image

“I get inspiration from things that have nothing to do with painting: caricature, items from newspapers, sights in the street, proverbs, nursery-rhymes, children's games and songs, nightmares, desires, terrors. ... That question [why do you paint?] has been put to me before and my answer was, 'To give terror a face.' But it's more than that. I paint because I can't help it.”

GivingChildrenHas BeensArtI CanHelpingInspirationFacesDesireSongGamesAnswersStreetsPaintingSightPaintTerrorNewspapersNightmareRhymeItemsBecause I CanNurseryCaricaturesNursery Rhymes
Book:Paula Rego
Create image

“In 1967, in DeKalb v. DeSpain, a court (255 F.Supp. 655. N.D.Ill. 1966.) took a 4-line nursery rhyme used by a K-5 kindergarten class and declared the nursery rhyme unconstitutional. The court explained that although the word 'God' was not contained in this nursery rhyme, if someone were to hear the rhyme, he might think that it was talking about God - and that would be unconstitutional!”

IfsThinkingMightWould BeChristianUsedReligiousLinesTalkingClassCourtIllRhymeNurseryKindergartenUnconstitutionalNursery Rhymes
Author:David Barton
Create image

“He had never been interested in stories at any age, and had never quite understood the basic concept. He'd never read a work of fiction all the way through. He did remember, as a small boy, being really annoyed at the depiction of Hickory Dickory Dock in a rag book of nursery rhymes because the clock in the drawing was completely wrong for the period.”

WayBookStoriesAgeRememberFictionBoysPeriodsUnderstoodConceptsDrawingClockNurseRhymeAnnoyedRagsNurseryDepictionDocksNursery Rhymes
Author:Terry Pratchett
Create image

“There are two ways of dealing with nonsense in this world. One way is to put nonsense in the right place; as when people put nonsense into nursery rhymes. The other is to put nonsense in the wrong place; as when they put it into educational addresses, psychological criticisms, and complaints against nursery rhymes or other normal amusements of mankind.”

PeopleWorldWayTwoMankindThis WorldNormalCriticismEducationalPsychologicalOne WayAddressesNonsenseComplaintsRhymeAmusementTwo WaysRight PlaceNurseryNursery Rhymes
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“The nursery rhyme ends when a spider comes along and frightens Miss Muffet straight off her tuffet. I have wondered about what kind of lesson this is for a young girl. If you're eating your curds and whey and a spider comes along, I don't think there's anything wrong with picking up a newspaper, smashing it, and going back to your breakfast.”

IfsThinkingKindEndsYoungGirlMissingLessonsEatingNewspapersBreakfastNurseRhymeSpidersNurserySmashingNursery Rhymes
Book:How Did You Get This Number
Create image

“Mama, Mama, help me get home I'm out in the woods, I am out on my own. I found me a werewolf, a nasty old mutt It showed me its teeth and went straight for my gut. Mama, Mama, help me get home I'm out in the woods, I am out on my own. I was stopped by a vampire, a rotting old wreck It showed me its teeth and went straight for my neck. Mama, Mama, put me to bed I won't make it home, I'm already half-dead. I met an Invalid, and fell for his art He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart. -From "A Child's Walk Home," Nursery Rhymes and Folk Tales”

HeartChildrenArtHelpingHomeFoundMy OwnWalksHalfMy HeartMetsBedFolksWoodsTalesTeethVampireNecksHelp MeGutsNastyRhymeMamaWrecksWerewolfNurseryRottingHis SmileNursery RhymesMutts
Book:Delirium: The Complete Collection: Delirium, Hana, Pandemonium, Annabel, Raven, Requiem
Create image

“There are, of course, inherent tendencies to repetition in music itself. Our poetry, our ballads, our songs are full of repetition; nursery rhymes and the little chants and songs we use to teach young children have choruses and refrains. We are attracted to repetition, even as adults; we want the stimulus and the reward again and again, and in music we get it. Perhaps, therefore, we should not be surprised, should not complain if the balance sometimes shifts too far and our musical sensitivity becomes a vulnerability.”

IfsWantShouldChildrenLittlesSometimesUseYoungSongCoursesTeachBalanceAdultsRewardsMusicalComplainingTendenciesVulnerabilityInherentAgain And AgainRhymeSensitivityRepetitionStimulusRefrainChorusNurseryYoung ChildrenBalladsNursery Rhymes
Author:Oliver Sacks
Create image

“Have you thought about what it means to be a god?" asked the man. He had a beard and a baseball cap. "It means you give up your mortal existence to become a meme: something that lives forever in people's minds, like the tune of a nursery rhyme. It means that everyone gets to re-create you in their own minds. You barely have your own identity any more. Instead, you're a thousand aspects of what people need you to be. And everyone wants something different from you. Nothing is fixed, nothing is stable.”

PeopleMenWantNeedsGivingMindMeanDifferentExistenceForeverIdentityThousandGiving UpAspectBaseballMortalsFixedTunesNurseStableRhymeWant SomethingNeed YouBeardCapsNurseryMemesNursery RhymesBaseball Caps
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.”

PeopleWorldWayFeelsWritingBookLightEyeRunningLiteratureSpeakDutySourceRepublicanDareBuddhistOne WayNecksMinoritiesEditorsItalianCensorshipRhymeLitBaptistsNurseryZionistDrearyFuseCensoredCensoringGuillotineBanned BooksCensorship In BooksPorridgeBook BanningUnitarianCensoring BooksNursery RhymesZen BuddhistDimwits
Book:Fahrenheit 451: A Novel
Create image

“Read to your children all of the time Novels and nursery rhymes Autobiographies, even the newspaper It doesn't mater; it's quality time Because once upon a time We grew up on stories in the voices in which they were told We need words to hold us and the world to behold us For us to truly know our souls”

KnowsWorldNeedsChildrenSoulStoriesVoiceQualityNovelGrewGrew UpOur ChildrenNewspapersYour ChildrenNurseRhymeAutobiographyOnce Upon A TimeNurseryQuality TimeNursery Rhymes
Author:Taylor Mali
Create image

“A nursery rhyme shapes your bones and nerves, and it shapes your mind. They are powerful, nursery rhymes, and immensely old, and not toys, even though they are for children." "But they make no sense!" Summer protested "Ah, well," said Ben. "Sometimes sense hides behind walls. You must find a window and stick your head right in before you can see it.”

MindWellsChildrenSaidSometimesPowerfulBehindsWallShapesSummerWindowSticksBonesNervesNurseToysRhymeNurseryWell SaidNursery Rhymes
Author:Katherine Catmull
Create image

“Now it is you who everyone presumes is so fragile. Wounded. Scarred. Maybe they're right. Perhaps you are. A nursery rhyme comes into your head, and, like an egg, you allow yourself to topple onto your side, your legs still pulled hard against your torso. You lie like that a long while, watching the chrome shell of the tape measure sparkle until the sun moves.”

LongStillsHardMovingLyingSidesSunLegsEggsFragileNurseTapeShellsWoundedRhymeYour SideNurserySparkleTorsoNursery RhymesChrome
Book:The Night Strangers
Create image

“On the train: staring hypnotized at the blackness outside the window, feeling the incomparable rhythmic language of the wheels, clacking out nursery rhymes, summing up moments of the mind like the chant of a broken record: god is dead, god is dead. going, going, going. and the pure bliss of this, the erotic rocking of the coach. France splits open like a ripe fig in the mind; we are raping the land, we are not stopping.”

MindMomentsFeelingsLanguageRecordsLandBrokenPureWindowTrainCoachesFranceStaringBlissWheelsNurseSplitsRhymeStoppingEroticRipeBlacknessNurseryIncomparableFigsGod Is DeadNursery RhymesSumming UpPure Bliss
Book:The Journals of Sylvia Plath
Create image