Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I wrote The Jesus Storybook Bible because I wanted children to know the Bible isn't mainly about you and what you're supposed to be doing. It's about God and what he has done. It's the story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them. It's a Love Story. It's an Adventure Story. And at the center of the story is a baby - the child upon whom everything would depend. And every single story in the Bible whispers his name.
Did you get Mom a birthday present?" Helen asked. "Yes," Gansey replied. "Myself." "The gift that keeps on giving." "I don't think that minor children are required to get gifts for their parents. I'm a dependent. That's the definition of dependent, is it not?" "You, a dependent!" his sister said, and laughed. "You haven't been a dependent since you were four. You went straight from kindergarten to old man with a studio apartment.
The re-interpretation and eventually (sic) eradication of the concept of right and wrong which has been the basis of child training, the substitution of intelligent and rational thinking for faith... are the belated objectives of practically all effective psychotherapy. The fact is, that most psychiatrists and psychologists and other respectable people have escaped from these moral chains and are able to observe and think freely.
We can choose to use our lives for others to bring about a better and more just world for our children. People who make that choice will know hardship and sacrifice. But if you give yourself totally to the non-violence struggle for peace and justice you also find that people give you their hearts and you will never go hungry and never be alone. And in giving of yourself you will discover a whole new life full of meaning and love.
Teachers can be a living example to their students. Not that teachers should look for students to idealize them. One who is worth idealizing does not care whether others idealize them or not. Everyone needs to see that you not only teach human values but you live them. It is unavoidable sometimes you will be idealized -- it is better for children to have a role model, or goal, because then the worshipful quality in them can dawn.
For decades we have been living lives of abundance, with little regard for our natural resources or global health. But we are now facing hard choices in our energy policy. Future generations - my children and grandchildren, along with yours - will have to live with the decisions we make today. And so it is time for us to make some tough and - hopefully - smart choices regarding our energy use and production before it is too late.
Zen says that if you drop knowledge - and within knowledge everything is included; your name, your identity, everything, because this has been given to you by others - if you drop all that has been given by others, you will have a totally different quality to your being: innocence. This will be a crucifixion of the persona, the personality, and there will be a resurrection of your innocence. You will become a child again, reborn.
In real life, there are right-wingers, there are anti-immigrant activists who want to overturn this constitutional right that we have to become Americans when we're born in this country. There's lots of people who believe that this has led to the phenomenon of the anchor babies. I am an anchor baby. My parents were able to receive their residency and citizenship because, I, a U.S. citizen child of theirs, was born in Los Angeles.
You often hear that people go into show business to find the love they never had when they were children. Never believe it! Every comic and most of the actors I know had a childhood full of love. Then they grew up and found out that in the grown-up world, you don't get all that love, you just get your share. So they went into show business to recapture the love they had known as children when they were the center of the universe.
Indeed, my conclusion from a lifetime of psychohistorical study of childhood and society is that the history of humanity is founded upon the abuse of children. Just as family therapists today find that child abuse often functions to hold families together as a way of solving their emotional problems, so, too, the routine assault of children has been society's most effective way of maintaining its collective emotional homeostasis.
Children sweeten labours. But they make misfortune more bitter. They increase the care of life. But they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity of generation is common to beasts. But memory, merit and noble works are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed.
Morality has in the past made progress when we broadened the category of things we weren't permitted to harm (animals, 'infidels'); saw through some delusions and rationalisations about what harms are good for people themselves (prison punishment, hysterectomies for unhappy 1950s wives); and readjusted our for-the-good of others criteria so as to demand only reasonable sacrifices (ceasing to use children as handy chimney sweeps).
How often the priest had heard the same confession--Man was so limited: he hadn't even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died: the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater the glory lay around the death; it was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or civilization--it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt.
I want to write about the great and powerful thing that listening is. And how we forget it. And how we don't listen to our children, or those we love. And least of all - which is so important, too - to those we do not love. But we should. Because listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force...When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.
The schoolmaster is the person who takes the children off the parents' hands for a consideration. That is to say, he establishes a child prison, engages a number of employee schoolmasters as turnkeys, and covers up the essential cruelty and unnaturalness of the situation by torturing the children if they do not learn, and calling this process, which is within the capacity of any fool or blackguard, by the sacred name of Teaching.
Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods
Life will be wonderful when men no longer fear dying. When the last superstitions are thrown out and we meet death with the same equanimity as life. No longer will children's minds be twisted by evil gods whose fantastic origin is in those barbaric tribes who feared death and lightning, who feared life. That's it: life is the villain to to those who preach reward in death, through grace and eternal bliss, or through dark revenge.
As a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women are a crucial part of that. It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.
It's an ethical pact I've made with myself and with the reader - not to invent. And when I can't remember, I say I can't remember. I'm just appalled by the memoirs published by people who regurgitate dialogue, conversations from when they were small children, and they go on for three or four pages. I can't even remember what we said to each other ten minutes ago! How can I remember what was said sixty years ago? It's not possible.
We do not wish incorrect and unsound doctrines to be handed down to posterity under the sanction of great names, to be received and valued by future generations as authentic and reliable, ... Errors in history and doctrine, if left uncorrected by us who are conversant with the events, and who are in a position to judge of the truth or falsity of the doctrines, would go to our children as though we had sanctioned and endorsed them.
The child in me could not die as it should have died, because according too legends it must find its father again. The old legends knew, perhaps, that in absence the father becomes glorified, deified, eroticized, and this outrage against God the Father has to be atoned for. The human father has to be confronted and recognized as human, as man who created a child and then, by his absence, left the child fatherless and then Godless.
Pray to God for gladness. Be glad as children, as the birds of heaven. And let not the sin of men confound you in your doings. Fear not that it will wear away your work and hinder its being accomplished. Do not say, 'Sin is mighty, wickedness is mighty, evil environment is mighty, and we are lonely and helpless, and evil environment is wearing us away and hindering our good work from being done.' Fly from that dejection, children!
The children - I call them children when they're under 18 - are hungry for that love. The drugs are just a sleep that you can't even wake up from, because you might remember what you did when you were there. There's no place for them - there should be a rehabilitation center on every corner, along with McDonald's and the banks. This is serious business. The waiting lists are incredible. I mean, it's terrible. It's really terrible.
One may enter the literary parlor via just about any door, be it the prison door, the madhouse door, or the brothel door. There is but one door one may not enter it through, which is the child room door. The critics will never forgive you such. The great Rudyard Kipling is one of a number of people to have suffered from this. I keep wondering to myself what this peculiar contempt towards anything related to childhood is all about.
The whole notion of sanity may be an attempt to medicalize morality - to speak of the good in the language of health: to make us more accurate, more scientific in our wanting - but by the same token it becomes a form of moral blackmail. It is as if to say: if these are not valued - if these forms of wanting and feeling and speaking and doing - are not cultivated and encouraged and rewarded in the child, then the child will be mad.
I hated it so much as a child. I just didn't like it when punk bands went metal, it really bothered me. It was happening left and right in the 1980s. It started I think with D.C. bands - G.I., Soul Side, they went metal. Right at that time, R.E.M. was coming out, these more kinda feminine bands, and I was more drawn to that than to go metal. And you remember MTV, with the bad metal. But even Metallica, it just wasn't my direction.
As you consider whether to move a child into formal academic training, remember that we want our children to do more than just learn how to read and write; we want them to learn in such a way that they become lifelong readers and writers. If we push our children to start learning these skills too far ahead of their own spontaneous interest and their capacity, we may sacrifice the long-range goal of having them enjoy such pursuits.
This is our punishment, our Tribulation. God has abandoned this world. The faithful have already gone on to their reward, and he has left the rest of us here, at the mercy of the demons and the devils. The sins of our fathers have passed to their children, and their children's children, and it will continue to be so until this world is completely destroyed. So it doesn't matter if you believe in God or not, because He is not here.
You have to explain to little children 'why' and you also have to listen to them and believe me, they will reason with you, they're unbelievable! So you can learn from everyone at any age. Life is about listening, leaning and never giving up. As long as you're here on earth, you're here for a purpose and it's not about you it's about what you can do to better the world you live in. And that's why I'm here, to help someone else up.
We do not know what we can bear until we are put to the test. Many a delicate mother, who thought that she could not survive the death of her children, has lived to bury her husband and the last one of a large family, and in addition to all this has seen her home and last dollar swept away; yet she has had the courage to bear it all and to go on as before. When the need comes, there is a power deep within us that answers the call.
What I didn't understand was that the personal and the political go together. I felt at the time I had to sacrifice my children's present for their future. It seemed an either/or. I didn't realise that by being with one's own children I would have had a better understanding of the ones who are not my own. I was thinking of them but I didn't spend the time that they needed from me. It's a tribute to them that they came out so well.
Part of my platform is, of course, the guilty must be punished and that we no longer let our children see their guilty leaders getting away with murder. Because it teaches children, you know, that they don’t have to have any morals as long as they have guns and are bullies and I don’t think that's a good message. . . . I do say that I am in favor of the return of the guillotine and that is for the worst of the worst of the guilty.
Revolution is the only thing, the only power, that ever worked out freedom for any people. The powers that have ruled long and learned to love ruling, will never give up that prerogative until they must, till they see the certainty of overthrow and destruction if they do not. To plant-to revolutionize-these are the twin stars that have ruled our pathway. What have we then to dread in the word Revolution-we, the children of rebels!
The majority of Latinos in this country are 28 years old or younger. All of those people out there attacking the Latino community, when you see a Latino going down the street with a baby carriage and a couple of children walking beside them, they should say 'Hey, there goes my social security and my Medicare.' Those are the people that are going to contribute to keep our social security system funded and our medical system funded.
I know I'm missing something, but those who have children are missing what I get to do. And frankly, I'm probably missing more of what I don't want than what I do. Some may call me selfish or narcissistic, but I don't want to spend my time going to PTA meetings. The only way I could have children and do the work I do is to have a househusband - and I'm not attracted to a househusband. I'd rather affect children with the work I do.
Some may say [journal keeping] is a great deal of trouble. But we should not call anything trouble which brings to pass good. I consider that portion of my life which has been spent in keeping journals and writing history to have been very profitably spent. - "If there was no other motive in view [except] to have the privilege of reading over our journals and for our children to read, it would pay for the time spent in writing it.
I am making an effort to truly live. I don't mean to imply by that that I haven't been alive before but, with my son being here and such a powerful force in my life, he's given me a freedom to be more. I think that sometimes we can get stuck, and just the fact that he's here says so much to me about my own existence. I didn't think I'd be able to have children, and this level of blessing is something I can't even put my finger on.
I am dedicating the majority of my wealth to improving education. It is the key to the survival of the human race. We have to plan for our collective future - and the first step begins with the social, emotional, and intellectual tools we provide to our children. As humans, our greatest tool for survival is our ability to think and to adapt - as educators, storytellers, and communicators our responsibility is to continue to do so.
This is what I give. I give an expression of care every day to each child, to help him realize that he is unique. I end each program by saying, 'You've made this day a special day by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you. And I like you just the way you are.' And I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service.
Children of God should not make a general confession by acknowledging their innumerable sins in a vague manner, because such confession does not provide conscience opportunity to do its perfect work. They ought to allow the Holy Spirit through their conscience to point out their sins one by one. Christians must accept its reproach and be willing, according to the mind of the Spirit, to eliminate everything which is contrary to God.
We Poor Cousins don’t care at all though, except for when we’re on welfare, broke, starving, unable to buy cool high-tops for our children or pay for their university tuition or purchase massive fourth homes on private islands with helicopter landing pads. But whatever, we descendants of the Girl Line may not have wealth and proper windows in our drafty homes but at least we have rage and we will build empires with that, gentlemen.
The disobedient child is continuously condemned. The obedient child is, on the other hand, continuously praised. But have you heard of any obedient child having become world-famous in any dimension of creativity? Have you heard of any obedient child who has attained the Nobel prize for anything - literature, peace, science? The obedient child becomes just the common crowd. All that is added to existence is added by the disobedient.
When in these fresh mornings I go into my garden before anyone is awake, I go for the time being into perfect happiness. In this hour divinely fresh and still, the fair face of every flower salutes me with a silent joy. . . . All the cares, perplexities, and griefs of existence, all the burdens of life slip from my shoulders and leave me with the heart of a little child that asks nothing beyond the present moment of innocent bliss.
All kinds of violence on the TV. You're not supposed to watch violence on the TV. Children, they can't watch it 'cause they're afraid maybe the kids will copy something they see on the TV. I can't even get a funny cartoon anymore because some 12-year-old somewhere watched a particularly violent episode of the Road Runner-Coyote show, and the next day, they found him at the bottom of a canyon, two giant springs strapped to his feet.
I call the years when our children are between six and twelve the "golden years," not because everything's perfect . . . but because the kids are capable and independent. . . . They're becoming fascinating human beings who continually astound us and make us laugh. And they build our self-esteem. They still adore us for the most part, not yet having reached that age of thinking everything we do is dumb, old-fashioned and irrelevant.
The wisdom of God exceeds that of the wisest man, more than his wisdom exceeds that of a child. If a child were to conjecture how an army is to be formed in the day of battle--how a city is to be fortified, or a state governed--what chance has he to guess right? As little chance has the wisest man when he pretends to conjecture how the planets move in their courses, how the sea ebbs and flows, and how our minds act upon our bodies.
Carmelia Montiel, a twenty-year-old virgin, had just bathed in orange-blossom water and was strewing rosemary leaves on Pilar Ternera's bed when the shot rang out. Aureliano José had been destined to find with her the happiness that Amaranta had denied him, to have seven children, and to die in her arms of old age, but the bullet that entered his back and shattered his chest had been directed by a wrong interpretation of the cards.
Hillary Clinton has a long track record of service in public life. And you can look at that. I tell the story about her being first lady of the United States, when the effort to get Hillary Clinton done failed, and that was a tough, tough, bitter loss, but then it tested her as a leader. And she worked together with Democrats and Republicans to get health insurance for eight million low-income American children in the CHIP program.
It is all well and good for children and acid freaks to believe in Santa Claus - but it is still a profoundly morbid day for us working professionals. It is unsettling to know that one out of every twenty people you meet on Xmas will be dead this time next year.... Some people can accept this, and some can't. That is why God made whiskey, and also why Wild Turkey comes in $300 shaped canisters during most of the Christmas season...
The children know all about everything so well that it never occurs to them to play at the situations in any one of these tales, or even to read it twice over. But let them have tales of the imagination, scenes laid in other lands and other times, heroic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, delicious fairy tales in which they are never roughly pulled up by the impossible —even where all is impossible, and they know it, and yet believe.