Quotes About Childhood

Since I have abandoned the idea of regular lessons, I find that Helen learns much faster. I am convinced that the time spent by the teacher digging out of the child what she has put into him, for the sake of satisfying herself that it has taken root, is so much time thrown away. It's much better, I think, to assume that the child is doing his part, and that the seed you have sown will bear fruit in due time.

One brief spring, musical with the song of robin and mocking-bird, one summer rich in fruit and roses, one autumn of gold and crimson sped by and left their gifts at the feet of an eager, delighted child.

While I was a voracious movie-goer as a boy, I never put writing and films together in my mind.

I began writing poems when I was about eight, with a heavy assist from my mother. She read me Arthur Waley's translations and Whitman and Robinson Jeffers, who have been lifelong influences on me. My father read Keats to me, and then he read more Keats while I was lying on the sofa struggling with asthma.

I've been writing stories all my life. My very first story had two little black girls riding horses. They were both me, too, so that's how into me I was.

When the child begins to think and to make use of the written language to express his rudimentary thinking, he is ready for elementary work; and this fitness is a question not of age or other incidental circumstance but of mental maturity.

Unfortunately, I've been bad at preserving things I'd written as a kid.

We cannot even recollect the actions of our infancy, our childhood is like something written on a slate and rubbed off.

We'd had books in my house growing up, but we had never had anything like lectures. I had never written an essay for my mother. I had never taken an exam. Because I was working a lot as a kid, I just hadn't elected to read that much.

I labored for eight years thinking I was writing a book for adults that was a nostalgic look back on childhood. Then my publisher informed me I'd written a children's book.

I have never fully exorcised shames that struck me to the heart as a child except through written violence, shadowy caricature, and dark jokes.

My inspiration for writing is all the wonderful books that I read as a child and that I still read. I think that for those of us who write, when we find a wonderful book written by someone else, we don't really get jealous, we get inspired, and that's kind of the mark of what a good writer is.

My very first acting job was with Alan Parker on' Angela's Ashes,' but as a child, I had written to so many other productions just applying for any role. I always wanted to be an actress, and I did loads of acting summer schools.

Words played an important part in my growing up. Not only the written word... but words that flew through the air: jokes, riddles, puns.

Childhood was very nice. The only thing wrong was that I was so introverted, everything became a big deal... 'Oh, no, here comes the bus. Where am I gonna sit on the bus?'

I didn't even really know who Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg were, and my parents kept trying to tell me, 'Noah, what is wrong with you!? This is the biggest actor and director in all of Hollywood!' And then I was like, 'Who cares? Whatever.' I was nine; I didn't know anything.

I've always vowed that if I had a child, I would treat him right. My father was a perfect model for me because everything that he did wrong, or everything that he did I would just do the opposite. Which would be the right thing to do. So that is being in your son's life 100 percent, give them love, give them affection, give them discipline.

I suppose the book I really remember loving as a child was one called 'The Outsiders' by S.E. Hinton, about a gang of kids from the wrong side of the tracks in Sixties Oklahoma. I grew up in the Eighties in Nottinghamshire, but this tale of troubled, but essentially good, kids - or 'greasers' - was something I completely connected with.

My mother was German, and I was brought up with 'Struwwelpeter' stories, which are invested with all sorts of horrors waiting for you if you do the wrong thing.

It's probably the wrong way round, I know, but I just love maths and doing equations. When I was a kid, I was really good at it, so when I was seven, I asked my mum what job lets you do maths and pays you for it. She said accountancy, and that was it. I was dead set.

My nursery school did a production of 'The Three Little Pigs.' I played the third pig. When the wolf knocked on my door, I refused to get up and answer it because, to me, he was knocking the wrong way. I just lay there, snoring away on stage, fully immersed in my character. My dad turned to my mom and said: 'Dustin Hoffman.'

I watched 'Free Willy' probably 100 times. I nearly wore out the VHS tape. That movie was my introduction to Michael Madsen. When I finally saw 'Reservoir Dogs', I was like, 'That's the guy from 'Free Willy'!' - which is probably the wrong way around.

Even as a child, my sister was so confident; she would always take a stand if she saw any wrongdoing.

Finally, I'm recognizing that rewrites aren't some cosmic punishment for childhood wrongs but the nature of the business.