Quotes About Childhood

The first thing that matters: I am a child of the eighties. I grew up in a neon wonderland of talking horses, compassionate bears, hair that didn't move in a stiff wind, and the constant threat of nuclear war.

Today the traveller on the Nile enters a wonderland at whose gates rise the colossal pyramids of which he has had visions perhaps from earliest childhood.

Is 'The Wind in the Willows' a children's book? Is 'Alice in Wonderland?' Is 'Treasure Island?' These are masterpieces which we read with pleasure as children, but with how much more pleasure when we are grown-up.

I'd always wanted to act - since I starred in 'Alice in Wonderland' as a girl, that was it.

As kids, we lived in this magical world and roamed free in the gardens. I was obsessed with 'Alice in Wonderland.' My dad cut the hedges so that they started shorter and grew taller, so I could run up and down and feel like I was shrinking.

When I was a child, my father would read out loud to my brother, my mother, and me. Several times in the course of my childhood, he would read 'Alice and Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' over a few weeks. They were a great favorite with all of us.

We have grown accustomed to the wonders of clean water, indoor plumbing, laser surgery, genetic engineering, artificial joints, replacement body parts, and the much longer lives that accompany them. Yet we should remember that the vast majority of humans ever born died before the age of 10 from an infectious disease.

Most children tell themselves stories in which they figure as powerful figures, enjoying the pleasures not only of the adult world as they conceive it but of a world of wonders unlike dull reality.

There are certainly stories that I used to tell myself as a kid that did influence 'The Cabinet of Wonders.' There's a scene in the novel where there's a flood that bursts through the castle, and one of my favorite things to do when I was a kid at school was imagine what school would be like if there was a sudden flood.

Visits to 'the country' were very important to me growing up, especially working on the farm, experiencing all the wonders of cats and chickens and pigs and calves and outhouses!

Very early on, I was writing stories, and I was amazed at Spielberg's movies when I was young. Coming from the countryside, I was so impressed with the way he was able to tell stories and the way he was able to deal with le merveilleux - the wonders.

I grew up hearing words like snakeroot, sassafras, mullein - things that had wondrous, mysterious sounds in their names.

Me and my two brothers painted a football pitch and used the net from scaffolding for goals with bits of wood, although they were burnt down in the end.

I did not play with dolls. I played with a little hammer, paint and wood.

There is a special sensation in getting good wood on the ball and driving a double down the left-field line as the crowd in the ballpark rises to its feet and cheers. But, I also remember how much fun I had as a skinny barefoot kid hitting a tennis ball with a broomstick on a quiet, dusty street in Panama.

My mom's a screenwriter, and before that, she was an actress, and my father was an actor; my stepfather was a director, so I was on sets a lot as a kid. I loved the magic of the set. You walk in, and it's a living room, and you walk outside, and it's just a piece of wood held up by another piece of wood.

When I was eight, I bought my first puppet. It was a monkey, and I paid five cents for it. I collected some scrap wood and built myself a puppet theatre. I made 32 cents with my first show, which I thought was pretty good, and that's when I knew I would be a puppeteer when I grew up.

I'd like to be played as a child by Natalie Wood. I'd have some romantic scenes as Audrey Hepburn and have gritty black-and-white scenes as Patricia Neal.

Every little girl wanted to be Natalie Wood, as did I.

Wading River was a gorgeous place to grow up and I feel very lucky there was a wood by our house where I could go explore when I was a kid.

I had to learn how to chop wood actually - I don't think my dad would have let me go chop wood in the backyard growing up.

I used to get on a stove wood pile at 5-6 years old and I would have a piece of stove wood and kindling bark as a pick, and I was a star.

I love fire. As a child I loved setting light to things. I'd always be in the forest putting matches to pieces of wood. I've always regarded fire as my friend.

Even at an early age, I rebelled against my strict upbringing. When I was 9, I built myself a 'make-out fort' in our backyard from wood, filled it with candy, and invited my blond, blue-eyed neighbor over to kiss.