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Quotes About Childhood

No one pitied him as he wished to be pitied," writes Tolstoy. "At certain moments after prolonged suffering he wished most of all (though he would have been ashamed to confess it) for someone to pity him as a sick child is pitied. He longed to be petted and comforted. He knew he was an important functionary, that he had a beard turning grey, and that therefore what he longed for was impossible, but still he longed for it.
~ Atul Gawande
The waitress was white, and the counter was white, and the ice cream I never ate in Washington, D. C. that summer I left childhood was white, and the white heat and the white pavement and the white stone monuments of my first Washington summer made me sick to my stomach for the whole rest of that trip and it wasn't much of a graduation present after all.
~ Audre Lorde
Bet vai tu zini par manu b?rn?bu? Vai tu zini, cik man bija sliktas m?jas un cik daudz ?auna es tur dab?ju iem?c?ties? Š?iet, ka tas n?k l?dzi mantojum?, no citiem augumiem, bet no k?? No pirm? auguma, t? bija rakst?ts b?rnu gr?mat?s, un liekas, ka piepild?s... T?p?c nevaino mani, tad es savuk?rt nevainošu savus vec?kus, kuri var?tu vainot sav?jos un t? joproj?m!
~ August Strindberg
Like every child, I adored her. Until I formed a brain and got to know her.
~ Augusten Burroughs
I really look at my childhood as being one giant rusty tuna can that I continue to recycle in many different shapes.
~ Augusten Burroughs
He was raised without a proper diagnosis.
~ Augusten Burroughs
Although my parents never attended church or mentioned Jesus except when they screamed at each other—and then they used his full name, 'Jesus Fucking Christ
~ Augusten Burroughs
I gazed around the room and my eyes stopped dead on a little boy standing in the corner. This was a particularly eerie doll. Life-sized and blond-haired and blue-eyed. I saw a little Nazi boy, pockets probably stuffed with scissors and retractable blades. My grandfather on my mother's side was rumored to be half Jewish, which practically makes me Jerry Seinfeld's brother, and thus wary of blond German boys with their hands out of sight.
~ Augusten Burroughs
As a young child I had Santa and Jesus all mixed up. I could identify Coke or Pepsi with just one sip, but I could not tell you for sure why they strapped Santa to a cross. Had he missed a house? Had a good little girl somewhere in the world not received the doll he'd promised her, making the father angry?" (p.3)
~ Augusten Burroughs
As a young child I had Santa and Jesus all mixed up. I could identify Coke or Pepsi with just one sip, but I could not tell you for sure why they strapped Santa to a cross. Had he missed a house? Had a good little girl somewhere in the world not received the doll he'd promised her, making the father angry?
~ Augusten Burroughs
My brother] shaped my young life. First, he taught me how to walk. Then, armed with sticks and dead snakes, he chased me and I learned how to run.
~ Augusten Burroughs
It's not that I was an outright nitwit of a child.
~ Augusten Burroughs
I didn't begin life hating my grandmother. Like every child, I adored her. Until I formed a brain and got to know her.
~ Augusten Burroughs
And if I said because I'm a witch, they'd think I was crazy.' 'That's exactly right,' she confirmed. 'Because everybody knows witches aren't real.' She nodded. 'Yes.' 'Except they really are real.' She continued nodding. 'Mm-hmm.' 'But you also told me Santa and the tooth fairy were real.' 'Those were lies,' she said. 'But they're lies every parent tells their children. So they're not really lies so much as a script.' 'I slept with teeth under my pillow, so it seems like a lie to me.
~ Augusten Burroughs
When I was ten years old, I realized I'd been kidnapped as a toddler. Of course, I would have to have been a fairly dim child to miss the clues. Great big pink-elephant clues, trumpeting and lumbering and shitting through the house, ignored by everyone except me.
~ Augusten Burroughs
I nodded again, but I knew I would not grow up to drive a bulldozer. It would be awful to be dirty all day like these men. I didn't say it, but at best I would keep one in the backyard, like a goat.
~ Augusten Burroughs
Shame is also a covert and effective bullying method. All those bullies from the seventh grade didn't simply evaporate. They grew up, too, and it's pretty safe to assume that the majority did not seek therapy on their eighteenth birthday to explore their disturbing childhood need for cruelty.
~ Augusten Burroughs
For a second, I felt a bottomless sadness. So completely alone. Like one of my stuffed animals at home that I that I was too old for now, that sat on the shelf in my closet, mashed against the back wall.
~ Augusten Burroughs
He always called me Daughter. It was to distinguish me from his sister Ava. I loved being called Daughter. It sounded so possessive, and to be possessed when you are a child is just a wonderful feeling. It makes you feel safe. It makes you feel loved.
~ Ava Gardner
Dragons have generally had a reputation for being anti-social. Liberals may attribute this to a deprived childhood, Conservatives to mere idleness: after all, is that a way to go through life, coiled around some tree?
~ Avram Davidson
What kind of a tragedy did you have in your childhood? Why, none at all. I had a wonderful childhood. Free and peaceful and not bothered too much by anybody. Well, yes, I did feel bored very often. But I'm used to that.
~ Ayn Rand
the Nurses had raised a Quaker orphan;
~ Stacy Schiff
The rest of the day they spent blowing soap bubbles from the veranda.
~ Stanis?aw Lem
I was Mowgli, of course, and Winnetou, and Captain Nemo.
~ Stanis?aw Lem