#ch

On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more. ↗

— J.M. Barrie

#magic #childhood

I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It's sure to be a phony. ↗

— Roald Dahl

#dahl #danny-the-champion-of-the-world #fiction #father

A prison becomes a home when you have the key. ↗

— George Sterling

#conformity #philosophy #prison

Did you know that childhood is the only time in our lives when insanity is not only permitted to us, but expected? ↗

— Louis de Bernières

#insanity #childhood

All of us are products of our childhood. ↗

— Michael Jackson

#childhood

When you become a teenager, you step onto a bridge. You may already be on it. The opposite shore is adulthood. Childhood lies behind. The bridge is made of wood. As you cross, it burns behind you ↗

— Gail Carson Levine

#bridge #childhood #childhood

And so seated next to my father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, "Father, what is sexsin?" He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case off the floor and set it on the floor. Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?" he said. I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning. It's too heavy," I said. Yes," he said, "and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger, you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you. ↗

— Corrie Ten Boom

#father #knowledge #travel

Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well. ↗

— George R.R. Martin

#summer #winter #childhood

Isabelle waved a hand. "No need to worry, big brother. Nothing happened. Of course," she added as Alex'a shoulders relaxed, "I was totally passed-out drunk, so he could really have done whatever he wanted and I wouldn't have woken up." "Oh, please," said Simon. "All I did was tell you the entire plot of Star Wars." "I don't think I remember that," said Isabelle, taking a cookie from the plate on the table. "Oh, yeah? Who was Luke Skywalker's best childhood friend?" "Biggs Darklighter," Isabelle said immediately, and then hit the table with the flat of her hand."That is so cheating! ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#city-of-lost-souls #isabelle-lightwood #mortal-instruments #shadowhunters #simon-lewis

There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we believe we left without having lived them, those we spent with a favorite book. ↗

— Marcel Proust

#childhood #reading #childhood