Quotes: Childhood, Children.

The idea in the bold-face print is a summary of the quote. The number is the page on which the quote was found.

Childhood, Children
Childhood 43 "...and I buttoned up my jacket and raced my shadow home." Cather, My Ántonia

Childhood 445 The experience as a child of leaving a darkened movie house to go into the bright light of day. "…that thing you used to feel as a child when you walked out of a movie house in the middle of the day and the streets were all agitation and nasty glare, every surface intense and jarring…." DeLillo, Underworld.

Children 1216 An adult's ideal childhood. "What was most wonderful of all, the children never quarreled among themselves; neither had they any crying fits; nor, since time first began, had a single one of these little mortals ever gone apart into a corner and sulked." “The Paradise of Children” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Children 303 "Civilization is cruel in sending [children] to bed at the most stimulating time of dusk.... Summer dusk, especially, is the frolic moment for children...." Alice Meynell. “Under the Early Stars.” 1897. Gross, ed. Essays.

Children 303 The energy of children vs. the weariness of adults. "This [bedtime] is not the only time when the energy of children is in conflict with the weariness of men." Alice Meynell. “Under the Early Stars.” 1897. Gross, ed. Essays.

Children 4 The "terrible twos." "[Attractions]…in children of two or three years old; an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise." Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Children 430 "Did you ever realize that children are people?" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Children 430 The desire to have her son grow beyond the provincialism of a small town. Carol: "He [her young son] has just as many thoughts as we have, and I want him to develop them, not take Gopher Prairie’s version of them." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.


Children, adults 64 Children show us the state of adult decay. "Children…show us the state of our [adults’] decay." Brian Aldiss. Portable Curmudgeon.

Children’s lit 1163 Writers make a mistake in writing down to children. "…the author has not always thought it necessary to write downward, in order to meet the comprehension of children." Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls