Quotes About Childhood

It's a very hard thing for all of us to accept ourselves at all the different stages - the horrible side, the wonderful side, the adorable side - and who you are as a grownup. And then to bring what you learned as a child to that grownup: that is the magic of creativity.

As a child, I experienced black culture as many people did in America: on the TV, radio, and stages.

It's something that is very comforting. Just the process of them moving throughout their stages of early childhood. Learning to walk, learning to talk. Reaching out for you for the first hug, telling you they love you.

My interest in self-help began when I was a child in the Seventies. My mum had a book she would consult regularly: 'Passages' by Gail Sheehy, which deals with the challenging stages of growing up.

I would always fall down the big main staircase in our house. My favorite thing in the world was to pretend to be horribly killed at the top of it, and to fall dramatically down to the bottom of it.

The first book I ever bought for myself was 'One Fish Two Fish' by Dr. Seuss. My favourite page shows two children carrying an enormous glass jar up some stairs in the dark. In the jar is a tusked beflippered creature floating in brine.

When I was 5 years old, I was coming up the stairs, and I saw my mom standing there, singing 'A Quiet Thing' a cappella, and it was such a differentiating moment for me. I realized that we are separate from each other - she has dreams and goals.

As we know all too well, our early years are formative in ways it can takes us a lifetime to grasp. Those years leave deep marks; in that way, the stakes of childhood are inherently very high.

Stalin was born Joseph Dzhugashvili in 1878 in Gori, Georgia, on the periphery of the Russian Empire. His father was a hard-drinking cobbler whose relationship with Joseph's mother, Keke Geladze, came to an end when the boy was around six years old.

I still have a stammer that I can control by not opening a sentence with a hard consonant, or by concentrating for a moment, breathing softly down. Growing up, the 'Our Father' was lovely, made for me, the 'Hail Mary' was gorgeous, and 'Glory Be to the Father' was an absolute nightmare.

As a kid I collected stamps, pebbles on the beach, anything. I liked to have at least 10 of something.

I have memories of the time when I was younger and when I believed in Santa Claus, which was the best part of Christmas. Back then, I wrote to Santa every year, hoping that my mom would post the letter with a stamp to the North Pole!

When you're a kid that's spent all your pocket money buying Spider-Man comics, and then as an adult, you're in the Marvel Universe, and you get to meet Stan Lee - it's wonderful.

I used to go to Caerphilly with my brother Les, two years older than me, with my mother to see her sister, Gladys. When they wanted to talk we'd have to leave the room. She'd say to her husband Stan 'take them in the front room and play the piano.'

My mum and dad used to make me stand up at dinner parties and sing to their friends.

I was always fascinated by the stand-up comedy shows from my childhood.

As children, we look up to people, for better or worse, and see them as the standard for how we should act and identify ourselves.

As a kid, the only time I used to get out at night when I was in 9th and 10th standard. The only time I had permission to go out at night was during Navratri because we all used to go play dandiya and garba.

There's inevitably something missing when you grow up in this kind of an environment when your parents travel a lot. When your father is famous, you are looked at and expected of. There are standards you need to meet.

Since I was a child, everyone would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up. Was I going to be a designer? It's as if there was a path drawn for me, and I could see, from where I was standing, exactly where it ended.

I actually participated in a Little Miss Orange Blossom Contest when was I was seven or eight years old. I remember standing up on the stage and thinking, 'Oh boy, I should not be here.' Obviously, I didn't win.

I remember I always felt much more safe standing up on a chair and singing in front of my mother than I was in front of my father!

The hardest people to play in front of are my brothers and friends from childhood, because I can never take them seriously. I know when they're sitting in the stands; it's constant jokes. They're just waiting on me to shoot an air ball or dribble the ball off my foot so they can laugh.

Kids love to be scared; we all do. But there's a difference between leaving them hanging out there, with their fears, and then bringing them safely home. Kids love it when someone like them stands up against real evil, something really horrendous and frightening, and win.