Quotes by American Authors - Page 142

He never had nothing of his own before, except the kid, and he can’t claim but half the credit, there, maybe less. T.J.’s blond like his mamma, and stubborn, too. Won’t let nobody hold him except her. Cries every time his daddy picks him up. Every time he looks in those wet blue eyes, he nearly loses it. His own son hates him. Can’t blame the kid for having an opinion.
Nadria Tucker
Although when there were too many people around- which there certainly were today- it was hard even to remember to say thank you: all those people were like drowning.
Robin McKinley
It is not often that you see life and fiction take each other by the hand and dance.
Lawrence Thornton
There was nowhere to go, but I turned to go and met Atticus's vest front. I buried my head in it and listened to the small internal noises that went on behind the light blue cloth: his watch ticking, the faint crackle of his starched shirt, the soft sound of his breathing.'Your stomach's growling,' I said.'I know it,' he said.
Harper Lee
Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.
Herman Wouk
It touched me to be trusted with something terrible.
Elizabeth Kostova
I think our job as parents is to give our kids roots to grow and wings to fly.Deborah Norville
Deborah Norville
Don't be so quick to count out the teenagers. Some of the world's greatest changes, brilliant poetry, and innovations have come from the teenage mind.
Steve Maraboli
What a terrible thing it is for children to see death, you say. We have it all wrong. If you make a child terrified of death, he won't embrace it so easily. And death must be embraced if you wish to follow Christ. Listen to His teaching. 'Unless you become like a child...and unless you take up your cross daily, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.' One is not valuable without the other. Janjic Jovic, The Dance of the Dead, 1959
Ted Dekker
He was taking a leap here, negotiating with a crackhead, under the table, in a dark cantina. The courage etched on his face came from loving Aidia so much he’d close his eyes and walk through fire to see her safe.
Laura Anderson Kurk
Today our children are our reflection. Tomorrow they will be our shadows.
Maralee McKee
He slid his hand onto Riley's bare abdomen. "I got to thinkin' that a few years down the line, when yer older, what if that was our baby and I could feel it right here under my hand. Feel the life we'd created."Riley's eyes moistened. "Girl or boy?""Doesn't matter. If it's a girl, we can name her after my gran. Her name was Emily Rose.""Hmm...I like that. Maybe the boy could be Paul Arthur, like my dad.""Yeah, that works. But that's all the way down the line, isn't it?" It might never come to pass.
Jana Oliver
One of the nicest things you can do to kick-start your children’s day is to tell them honestly they look nice as they head out the door. This easy, five-second exchange says to your child: “I see you; I notice you; I love you.
Molly Friedenfeld
So often, children are punished for being human. Children are not allowed to have grumpy moods, bad days, disrespectful tones, or bad attitudes, yet we adults have them all the time! We think if we don't nip it in the bud, it will escalate and we will lose control. Let go of that unfounded fear and give your child permission to be human. We all have days like that. None of us are perfect, and we must stop holding our children to a higher standard of perfection than we can attain ourselves. All of the punishments you could throw at them will not stamp out their humanity, for to err is human, and we all do it sometimes.
Rebecca Eanes
In between every action and reaction, there is a space. Usually the space is extremely small because we react so quickly, but take notice of that space and expand it. Be aware in that space that you have a choice to make. You can choose how to respond, and choose wisely, because the next step you take will teach your child how to handle anger and could either strengthen or damage your relationship.
Rebecca Eanes
Girls mature faster than boys, cost more to raise, and statistics show that the old saw about girls not knowing about money and figures is a myth. Girls start to outspend boys before puberty—and they manage to maintain this lead until death or an ugly credit manager, whichever comes first. Males are born with a closed fist. Girls are born with the left hand cramped in a position the size of an American Express card. Whenever a girl sees a sign reading, “Sale, Going Out of Business, Liquidation,” saliva begins to form in her mouth, the palms of her hands perspire and the pituitary gland says, “Go, Mama.” In the male, it is quite a different story. He has a gland that follows a muscle from the right arm down to the base of his billfold pocket. It's called “cheap.” Girls can slam a door louder, beg longer, turn tears on and off like a faucet, and invented the term, “You don't trust me.” So much for “sugar and spice and everything nice” and “snips and snails and puppydog tails.
Erma Bombeck
Single moms: You are a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, a maid, a cook, a referee, a heroine, a provider, a defender, a protector, a true Superwoman. Wear your cape proudly.
Mandy Hale
Never tell a child that something it’s too hard
Mitch Albom
We're assigned to children who are doomed.
Lisa Dekis
I told my three sons stories about germs more than fifty years ago as fanciful bedtime tales.
Arthur Kornberg
Philosophically, I am a logical empiricist and materialist, and I am a veteran of over 400 radio and TV interviews and debates. I am a Christ-myth advocate and am pursuing research into how Christianity could have begun without a historical Jesus of Nazareth. I am married with one daughter and three grandchildren.
Frank R. Zindler
We're constantly judging and grading other parents, just to make sure that they aren't any better than us. I'm as guilty as anyone. I see some lady hand her kid a Nintendo DS at the supermarket and I instantly downgrade that lady to Shitty Parent status. I feel pressure to live up to a parental ideal that no one probably has ever achieved. I feel pressure to raise a group of human beings that will help America kick the shit out of Finland and South Korea in the world math rankings. I feel pressure to shield my kids from the trillion pages of hentai donkey porn out there on the Internet. I feel pressure to make the insane amounts of money needed for a supposedly 'middle-class' upbringing for the kids, an upbringing that includes a house and college tuition and health care and so many other expenses that you have to be a multimillionaire to afford it. PRESSURE PRESSURE PRESSURE.
Drew Magary
It would be better to have no school at all than the schools we now have. Encouraged, instead of frightened, children could learn several languages before reaching age of four, at that age engaging in the invention of their own languages. Play'd be play instead of being, as now, release of repressed anger.
John Cage
If the bible be true, God commanded his chosen people to destroy men simply for the crime of defending their native land. They were not allowed to spare trembling and white-haired age, nor dimpled babes clasped in the mothers' arms. They were ordered to kill women, and to pierce, with the sword of war, the unborn child. 'Our heavenly Father' commanded the Hebrews to kill the men and women, the fathers, sons and brothers, but to preserve the girls alive. Why were not the maidens also killed? Why were they spared? Read the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, and you will find that the maidens were given to the soldiers and the priests. Is there, in all the history of war, a more infamous thing than this? Is it possible that God permitted the violets of modesty, that grow and shed their perfume in the maiden's heart, to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of lust? If this was the order of God, what, under the same circumstances, would have been the command of a devil? When, in this age of the world, a woman, a wife, a mother, reads this record, she should, with scorn and loathing, throw the book away. A general, who now should make such an order, giving over to massacre and rapine a conquered people, would be held in execration by the whole civilized world. Yet, if the bible be true, the supreme and infinite God was once a savage.
Robert G. Ingersoll
Half of the time, the Holy Ghost tries to warn us about certain people that come into our life. The other half of the time he tries to tell us that the sick feeling we get in a situation is not the other person’s fault, rather it is our own hang-ups. A life filled with bias, hatred, judgment, insecurity, fear, delusion and self-righteousness can cloud the soul of anyone you meet. Our job is never to assume,instead it is to listen, communicate, ask questions then ask more, until we know the true depth of someone’s spirit.
Shannon L. Alder
Look at you, standing there in your iron- gray dress, feeling piousand self- righteous while you starve small children!
V.C. Andrews
She lay outside in the courtyard, staring up at the raindrops… feeling them hit her body… trying to guess where one would land next. The nuns called again, threatening that pneumonia might make an insufferably headstrong child a lot less curious about nature.
Dan Brown
We haven't remained idle, twiddling our thumbs while you were off having a good time. Through books Cathy and I have lived a zillion lives . . . our vicarious way to feel alive.
V.C. Andrews
Go on, glare your eyes at me, and cry and plead, and talk tome about money and what it can buy. But it can't buy back a child once he's dead!
V.C. Andrews
Children are very wiseintuitively; they know who loves them most, and who only pretends.
V.C. Andrews
A nursery rhyme shapes your bones and nerves, and it shapes your mind. They are powerful, nursery rhymes, and immensely old, and not toys, even though they are for children." "But they make no sense!" Summer protested "Ah, well," said Ben. "Sometimes sense hides behind walls. You must find a window and stick your head right in before you can see it.
Katherine Catmull
In a town in Calabria, a long time ago, there lived an old lady everyone called Strega Nona, which meant "Grandma Witch".
Tomie dePaola
Parenting is the greatest pay it forward system on earth. We don't owe our parents anything. We owe our children everything. The same was true for our parents. The same will be true for our children.
Dan Pearce
Mom was adamantly pro-choice. She had a bumper sticker on the car that read If you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child? But in her case the choice was to keep me.
Gayle Forman
This is not a contest with your child. The winner is not the one with more points. The winner is the one whose child still loves them when they graduate from high school.
Martin L. Kutscher
The situation with regard to insulin is particularly clear. In many parts of the world diabetic children still die from lack of this hormone. ... [T]hose of us who search for new biological facts and for new and better therapeutic weapons should appreciate that one of the central problems of the world is the more equitable distribution and use of the medical and nutritional advances which have already been established. The observations which I have recently made in parts of Africa and South America have brought this fact very forcible to my attention.
Charles Herbert Best
Children don't understand, when things aren't given. The single parent struggling to provide; how they sacrifice themselves, by sweeping their dreams and goals under the table, just to bring bread and beans on the table.
Anthony Liccione
When the rush of the weak sweeps over those that strive to be strong, its destruction. The commonplaces of moral judgment become fogged with the lack of perception stained with the sting of longing. The voice of reason is lost in the envious echoes of hearts torn by battle. The song of our children echo the misfortune of their parent's haze---we all started out small and had dreams to become something more than what we were.
Shannon L. Alder
Tiddlywinks, tiddlywinks, I want to play tiddlywinks," chanted Ramona, shaking her head back and forth.
Beverly Cleary
History has shown us time and time again that you don't have to know someone to love them with all your heart.
Shannon L. Alder
When a child is forced to prove himself as capable, results are often disastrous. A child needs love, acceptance, and understanding. He is devastated when confronted with rejection, doubts, and never ending testing.
Virginia M. Axline
I hang around kids so people will assume when I act like one it's because I'm babysitting.
Richelle E. Goodrich
What is childhood without stories? And how will children fall in love with stories without bookstores? You can't get that from a computer.
Sarah Jio
So many people think that they are not gifted because they don’t have an obvious talent that people can recognize because it doesn’t fall under the creative arts category—writing, dancing, music, acting, art or singing. Sadly, they let their real talents go undeveloped, while they chase after fame. I am grateful for the people with obscure unremarked talents because they make our lives easier---inventors, organizers, planners, peacemakers, communicators, activists, scientists, and so forth. However, there is one gift that trumps all other talents—being an excellent parent. If you can successfully raise a child in this day in age to have integrity then you have left a legacy that future generations will benefit from.
Shannon L. Alder
Listen in close, Wall Street Conquistadors, you’re spreading like vapor up through people’s floors, you’re moving en masse under the cracks of our doors and grabbing our children to work in your stores, feeding the needy to make them your whores, but you need to remember the grave you’re digging is yours.
Trevor D. Richardson
Now this is a most satisfactory and important thing to think about, for brutality will not,—cannot,—accomplish what a kindly disposition will; and, if folks could only know how quickly a “balky” child will, through loving and cuddling, grow into a charming, happy youth, much childish gloom and sorrow would vanish; for a man or woman who is ugly to a child is too low to rank as highly as a wild animal; for no animal will stand, for an instant, anything approaching an attack, or any form of harm to its young. But what a lot of tots find slaps, yanks and hard words for conditions which do not call for such harsh tactics! No child is naturally ugly or “cranky.” And big, gulping sobs, or sad, unhappy young minds, in a tiny body should not occur in any community of civilization. Adulthood holds many an opportunity for such conditions. Childhood should not.
Ernest Vincent Wright
One day I have a revelation. ‘I think we’re actually quite compatible,’ I tell him. ‘You’re irritable, and I’m irritating.
Pamela Druckerman
Attachment parenting, Sears writes, "immunizes children against many of the social and emotional diseases which plague our society," producing children who are "compassionate," "caring," "admirable," "affectionate," "confident," and "accomplished" ("faster than a speeding bullet," "more powerful than a locomotive," and "able to leap tall buildings in a single bound" seem to have been left off the list!).
Emily Matchar
The parent is the child's guide. This shepherding process helps a child to understand himself and the world in which he lives. The parent shepherds a child to assess himself and his responses. He shepherds the child to understand not just the "what" of the child's actions, but also the "why." As the shepherd, you want to help your child understand himself as a creature made by and for God. You cannot show him these things merely by instruction; you must lead him on a path of discovery. You must shepherd his thoughts, helping him to learn discernment and wisdom.
Tedd Tripp
When you treat a person right in the present they turn out better in the future.
Stacy Snapp-Killian aka StacyK
If children matter, than whom more to stand in the gap than their parents; yet sadly, the parents (or a parent) can ironically become the chief enemy for which the children may hold in contempt…rather than care. Under the “abuse card”, the custodial parent has the aforementioned ability to operate as a double agent: on the one-side, the protector and caretaker; while on the other side, the divider and abuser. Similarly, the state can be integral to The System of dismantling the dad while appearing (and attesting) to be acting in the best interest of the children. Within the second of these two is the divorce industry that has benefited from the spoils of war without regard to the incomparable costs borne by our community and culture.
H. Kirk Rainer
As a parent, you have authority because God calls you to be an authority in your child's life. You have the authority to act on behalf of God. As a father or mother, you do not exercise rule over your jurisdiction, but over God's. You act at his command. You discharge a duty that he has given. You may not try to shape the lives of your children as pleases you, but as pleases him. All you do in your task as parents must be done from this point of view. You must undertake all your instruction, your care and nurture, your correction and discipline, because God has called you to. ... If you are God's agent in this task of providing essential training and instruction of the Lord, then you, too, are a person under authority. You and your child are in the same boat. You are both under God's authority. You have different roles, but the same Master.
Tedd Tripp
Sometimes to be a good parent... You have to laugh when you want to be angry. You have to be angry when you want to laugh. And that is why good parenting is tough.
Dan Pearce
It’s so easy and convenient to buy our children gifts, but I encourage and challenge you to give them gifts that TRULY matter! The gift of unconditional love. The gift of encouragement. The gift of support. The gift of friendship. The gift of communication, understanding, and patience. The gift of guidance and support. The gift of quality time. And the gift of loving them for who THEY are. Material things are nice, but NOTHING compares to genuine love! Parenting should be taking seriously.
Stephanie Lahart
CAUSE AND EFFECTYou can give a man who has never given you a good word,Volumes of knowledge.And you can give a man who has never given you a gift,A thousand gifts.You can give that same man who has never given you a blessing,A thousand blessings.And you can offer that same man who has neverOffered a hand to help you grow,Seeds to help him grow a garden.And while you have never seen true kindness from his direction,You still offer to help push him up.And in the end,He only wants to be the hand that pulls you down.Do not worry, my friends.Cause and effect was written by the stars of the universe.He who passes suffering onto othersWill also have that suffering passed onto his own children.Gifts he feels he should have in the next lifetime will be unobtainable.And the help he needs to grow in the next lifetime will be unavailable.And the people he cuts down that were good to him,Will cut him down in the next lifetime.What goes around does come back again,Even through your children.There is a vibrational effectIn every action,Just as there isA vibration that ringsFrom every letterIn every word.No cause occurs without effectAnd no effect occurs without cause.No unjust action goes without penaltyAnd no action or thoughtFlows unnoticedThroughoutThe universe.
Suzy Kassem
Education is our path to change. Minds and hearts are brightened via learning.
Galit Breen
She hadn’t dreamed a time would ever come when someone might want to emulate her talk or behavior. Consequently, it made her feel tight and strange inside to hear her words on the kid’s lips. A small part of her was astonished and secretly flattered. But a larger part was appalled.
Maggie Osborne
It may be possible that Leukemia in children is linked to the location of the fuse board and the electrical meter on the home.
Steven Magee
The various forms of electromagnetic radiation were extensively proven harmful to human health decades ago. The air is electrified, the ground is electrified, the water is electrified, your metal mattress is electrified, your metal under wired bra is electrified, your children are electrified, and you are electrified. Unfortunately, we are in the electromagnetic radiation epidemic.
Steven Magee
When a mother gives birth, her body is not only able to provide nourishment to her baby, but is also designed to be its own personal medicine cabinet. Breast milk is the best and most natural food you can give a child, and applying it sparingly on a baby's head, eye or skin will eliminate cradle cap, acne, rashes, dryness, and even eye infections.
Suzy Kassem