#hood

Sooner or later, you will discover which kind of father you are, and at that moment you will, with perfect horror, recognize the type. You are the kind of father who fakes it, who yells, who measures his children with greatest accuracy only against one another, who evades the uncomfortable and glosses over the painful and pads the historic records of his sorrows and accomplishments alike. You are the kind who teases and deceives and toys with his children and subjects them to displays of rich and manifold sarcasm when--as is always the case--sarcasm is the last thing they need. You are the kind of father who pretends knowledge he doesn't possess, and imposes information with implacable gratuitousness, and teaches lessons at the moment when none can be absorbed, and is right, and has always been right, and always will be right until the end of time, and never more than immediately after he has been wrong. And when your daughter's body begins to betray her, and her sky flickers in the distance with the heat lightning of sex, you clear your throat and stroke your chin whiskers and tell her to go ask her mother. You can't help it--you're a walking cliché. ↗

— Michael Chabon

#historical

Quick question. Does this magical skill with gray matter come with a total lack of compunction for your kind, or is it just you who were born without a conscience? V: I beg your pardon? ↗

— J.R. Ward

#vishous #conscience

The smells of Christmas are the smells of childhood [p. 53] ↗

— Richard Paul Evans

#christmasa #memories #smells #christmas

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. ↗

— John F. Kennedy

#alien #american #american people #competitive #entrust

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

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