#childhood

one of the best and the most painful things about time traveling has been the opportunity to see my mother alive. ↗

— Audrey Niffenegger

#childhood-memory #happiness #loss #love #memory

He knew what the wind was doing to them, where it was taking them, to all the secret places that were never so secret again in life. ↗

— Ray Bradbury

#old-age #age

It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you. ↗

— Nicole Krauss

#nicole-krauss #the-history-of-love #love

There are many roles that people play and many images that they project. There is, for example, the "nice" man who is always smiling and agreeable. "Such a nice man," people say. "He never gets angry." The facade always covers its opposite expression. Inside, such a person is full of rage that he dares not acknowledge or show. Some men put up a tough exterior to hide a very sensitive, childlike quality. Even failure can be a role. Many masochistic characters engage in the game of failure to cover an inner feeling of superiority. An outward show of superiority could bring down on them the jealous wrath of the father and the threat of castration. As long as they act like failures they can retain some sexuality, since they are not a threat to her father. ↗

— Alexander Lowen

#childhood #fear #guilt #parenthood #repression

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I a tired of being treated like a child. My father says it's because I am a child--I am twelve-and-a-half years old--but it still isn't fair. If I go into a store to buy something, nobody pays any attention to me, or if they do, it's to say, "Leave that alone," "Don't touch that," although I haven't done anything. My money is as good as anybody's, but because I am younger, they feel they can be mean to me. It happens to me at home, too. My mother's friend who comes over after dinner sometimes, who doesn't have any children of her own and doesn't know what's what, likes to say to me, "Shouldn't you be in bed by now,dear?" when she doesn't even know what my bedtime is supposed to be. Is there any way I can make these people stop? GENTLE READER: Growing up is the best revenge. ↗

— Judith Martin

#miss-manners #money

Think for a minute, darling: in fairy tales it's always the children who have the fine adventures. The mothers have to stay at home and wait for the children to fly in the window. ↗

— Audrey Niffenegger

#mothers #travel

Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning. ↗

— J.M. Barrie

#right

Dance. Dance for the joy and breath of childhood. Dance for all children, including that child who is still somewhere entombed beneath the responsibility and skepticism of adulthood. Embrace the moment before it escapes from our grasp. For the only promise of childhood, of any childhood, is that it will someday end. And in the end, we must ask ourselves what we have given our children to take its place. And is it enough? ↗

— Richard Paul Evans

#childhood #children #parenting #play #miracles

We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It's just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected. ↗

— Ben Okri

#dreams

In a child's eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe. ↗

— N.K. Jemisin

#children #mother #motherhood #love