Quotes About Childhood

Russian children typically hear racist and ethnic slurs against Caucasus natives at home before hearing it on the streets.

Where most kids play stickball and hockey, I'd walk down the streets with two sets of boxing gloves and knock on my friend's door and see if he wanted to box. There were boxing gyms on every corner.

I grew up playing in the streets. We played two-hand touch from street pole to street pole. That's how I learned the game.

I grew up in the next town over from Asbury Park and five streets from E Street. My mother fed me 'Born To Run' with my Cheerios.

I started out playing football in the streets, playing barefoot like all the boys there - we didn't have the money for football boots.

As a kid, we used to play wearing a Liverpool shirt in the streets.

My brother shaved a cricket bat out of a coconut branch... we played cricket with anything we put our hands on - a hard orange, a lime, a marble - anything we could use in the backyard or the streets.

The idea of my parents was to keep us away from the streets. Gelsenkirchen is not a rich city. The crime is above average so they always tried to keep us away from bad things, and I think they were successful.

I remember I'd be playing in the streets with friends, sometimes barefooted. I'd come home with sore feet, but wanting to do the same the day after. That passion made us keep playing. Playing in the dirt was our daily joy.

My greatest strength as a child, I realize now, was my imagination. While every other kid was reading and writing, I had seven whole hours a day to practice my imagination. When do you get that space in your life, ever?

I had a recurring stress dream since I was a kid 10 years old. My friend Travis is driving, and I'm afraid we're going to get in trouble. We keep passing people I recognize, and no one is doing anything. Travis keeps driving faster. I've had that dream a long time.

This idea that some kids have now in some communities that if they haven't filled out their college resumes by the time they're 12, they are going to fail in life, it's a lot of stress on kids.

I was actually not some sort of a child prodigy by any stretch.

You kind of did fight for food, so I filled up my plate. My dad would make us finish it, and I'd sit there crying because I'd have to finish all that food. I think that forced my stomach to stretch.

I remember going to the Gap when I was in the fifth grade, and I desperately wanted a pair of blue jeans. I was with my dad, and I remember picking up the jeans, looking at them, and thinking that they had to fit me. But there was nothing that fit me. This was before the age of stretch, so I was trying on adult Gap.

My parents both worked; I was a 'latchkey kid.' We were lower-middle class, and they did everything that they could to give me anything I wanted, within reason. We were not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but being an adopted kid, I think we had a different connotation. My parents tried extra hard, I think.

My dad used to give me a lot of spankings. Anything I did wrong, he was on me. I was raised by a strict disciplinarian. He kind of laid down the law.

My house was very strange. I didn't do things other kids did because my parents were very strict - I stayed at home, quiet in my room.

My mom, she's the strict one. If we did something bad, we'd get a whippin' but nothing too bad.

My mother wouldn't even let me read DC Comics. I came from a very strict background.

My grandmother was very strict. She and my mom wouldn't let me hang around the streets. It wasn't my lifestyle.

I grew up before there were strict leash laws.

As an only child you don't have many people to play with, and mum was strict about not mixing with kids on the street, so I played by myself.

I think what my parents did was perfect. They were strict, concerned about my safety and held me back just a little.