Children
There’s a time when you have to explain to your children why they were born, and it’s a marvelous thing if you know the reason by then.
If you don’t have children the longing for them will kill you, and if you do, the worrying over them will kill you.
Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
The hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes.
No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true educator should be to unlock that treasure.
Ours is the first society in history in which parents expect to learn from their children, rather than the other way around. Such a topsy-turvy situation has come about at least in part because, unlike the rest of the world, we are an immigrant society, and for immigrants the only hope is in the kids.
It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn’t.
Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.
There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents – if the term is to be used at all.
Children whose problems aren’t recognized become problem children.
At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experiences of life; the thorns should never be plucked from his roses.
When we want to infuse new ideas, to modify or better the habits and customs of a people, to breathe new vigor into its national traits, we must use the children as our vehicle; for little can be accomplished with adults.
Too much indulgence has ruined thousands of children; too much love not one.
Children robbed of love will dwell on magic.
A child does not thrive on what he is prevented from doing, but on what he actually does.
It is a mystery why adults expect perfection from children. Few grownups can get through a whole day without making a mistake.
A child can never be better than what his parents think of him.
Children in a family are like flowers in a bouquet, there’s always one determined to face in an opposite direction from the way the arranger desires.
I love children, especially when they cry, because then somebody takes them away.
Where there’s a will there’s a way, and when there’s a child there’s a will.
All encounters with children are touched with social embarrassment.
I see the mind of the five-year-old as a volcano with two vents: destructiveness and creativeness.
It is frequently said that children do not know the value of money. This is only partially true. They do not know the value of your money. Their money, they know the value of.
One should, you think, always give children money, for they will spend it for themselves far more profitably than we can ever spend it for them.
The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.
One of the things I’ve discovered in general about raising kids is that they really don’t give a damn if you walked five miles to school.


