Quotes by British Authors - Page 541

I don’t care what your excuse is, I don’t care what you think God told you to do, if you are in the business of closing children’s minds and obliterating their capacity to imagine, and depriving them of a capacity to laugh, then you are a criminal. Maybe not under the law, but under any decent system of morality.Shame on anyone who brainwashes a child and attacks their individual liberty and deprives them of the freedom that is the very definition of a human being. Shame.
Michael Grant
Being nearly four years old, she was certainly a child: and children are human (if one allows the term "human" a wide sense): but she had not altogether ceased to be a baby: and babies are of course not human--they are animals, and have a very ancient and ramified culture, as cats have, and fishes, and even snakes: the same in kind as these, but much more complicated and vivid, since babies are, after all, one of the most developed species of the lower vertebrates. In short, babies have minds which work in terms and categories of their own which cannot be translated into the terms and categories of the human mind.It is true that they look human--but not so human, to be quite fair, as many monkeys.Subconsciously, too, every one recognizes they are animals--why else do people always laugh when a baby does some action resembling the human, as they would at a praying mantis? If the baby was only a less-developed man, there would be nothing funny in it, surely.
Richard Hughes
Alexander assured her, 'Eva, none of us know our children. Because they are not us.
Sue Townsend
Ever seen a two-year-old tattering around a garden? There might be a poison ivy, or rose bushes or hawthorne around the edges. There might be spades or secateurs lying on the lawn. The kid doesn't care. He just wants to play with all those brightly coloured things he sees. To him, the world is a safe place. And you might want to rush out and cut back all those sharp spiky plants so they can't hurt him, and you might want to clear away all those dangerous tools just in case, he picks them up and cut himself on them, but you know you shouldn't because if you keep doing that then he either will grow up thinking the can never hurt him, or he might go the other way, and think that everything is dangerous, and he should never go far from your side. So you just watch. And wait. And if he does get rush from the poison ivy or if he does cut his fingers off with the secateurs, then you get him to the hospital as quickly as you can, in the reasonably sure knowledge the he'll never make the same mistake again.
Andy Lane
In the end, the slow decay of the body didn't matter. We all continue on, renewing ourselves, through our offspring. They are what matter. They are what survives.
Andy Lane
Despite their displays of bravado, young boys can be peculiarly susceptible to atmosphere("Between Four Yews")
Reggie Oliver
Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.'I said, 'Are you a monster? Like Ursula Monkton?'Lettie threw a pebble into the pond. 'I don't think so,' she said. 'Monsters come in all shapes and sizes, Some of them are things people are scared of. Some of them are things that look like things people used to be scared of a long time ago. Sometimes monsters are things people should be scared of, but they aren't.'I said, 'People should be scared of Ursula Monkton.''P'raps. What do you think Ursula Monkton is scared of?''Dunno. Why do you think she's scared of anything? She's a grown-up, isn't she? Grown-ups and monsters aren't scared of things.'Oh, monsters are scared," said Lettie. "That's why they're monsters. And as for grown-ups...' She stopped talking, rubbed her freckled nose with a finger. Then, 'I'm going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.
Neil Gaiman
Shot the man! Shed human blood! Hid in a pool!" ejaculated Mr. Dove, overcome. "Really, Rachel, you are a most trying daughter. Why should you go out before daybreak and do such things?
H. Rider Haggard
Don't you remember what your grandfather used to say? That thing about pots and people?""That pots were like people," Alex replied flatly, thinking back to his grandfather carrying a tray of wet freshly thrown clay pots across the studio in ancient Athens. "He said you couldn't tell how well they'd turn out until they'd been fired in the kiln.""Well then?""Well then, what?" muttered Alex. "Some pots shatter in the heat, Aries. I should know. I was the one who had to sweep them up every evening. Sometimes it's better not to go near the fire.""Well, that's the spirit I must say!" huffed Aries. "Thank you very much!
Julia Wills
You have been the great green adventure of my life. Without you my days would be unlit.
Katherine Rundell
You two are children almost grown. Your hearts have not hardened to the realities of the world. Your dreams have not fallen through your fingers. You still know hope.
Laura Lam
Parents raise children then grow old, and their children forget the things their old parents did for them, because their brains don’t remember before they grew selfish.There are buildings all over the world full of old people sitting around looking out of windows, full of hate for their selfish sons and daughters.And meanwhile, the selfish sons and daughters look out of their windows at their children playing and think how wonderful their unbreakable bond of love is between them and their children.
Craig Stone
I never realized before that taking care of someone makes you love them more than when they take care of you.
Helen Smith
The minds of small children are more interested in clockwork trains, jumping in puddles and other important childhood endeavours.
Maxwell Grantly
Raising your children to love and serve Jesus is fulfilling one of God’s highest callings upon your life.
Elizabeth George
For the entrance is low: we must stoop till we are no taller than children to get in.
C.S. Lewis
They're a pair of young Satans.
Frances Hodgson Burnett
you find yourself repeating, ‘They grow up so quickly, don’t they?’ when all you really mean is: time goes faster for me nowadays.
Julian Barnes
The only thing Jess really cared about were those two children and letting them know they were okay. Because even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you had your mother at your back, you'd be okay. Some deep-rooted part of you would know you were loved. That you deserved to be loved.
Jojo Moyes
Children with autism are colourful - they are often very beautiful and, like the rainbow, they stand out.
Adele Devine
My aim is to sort the jumble of information we throw at these children and present it in such a way that they will have a greater chance of achieving independence and fulfilment.
Adele Devine
I'm only keeping in touch with you for the sake of the children. Way to look after our son, by the way. I let you have him for the weekend and before I know it he's chained underground, awaiting Last Times and stinking of mead.
Joanne Harris
Father, I am from a different egg than your other children. Think of me as a duckling raised by hens. I am not a domestic bird destined to spend his life in a chicken coop. The water that scares you rejuvenates me. For unlike you I can swim, and swim I shall. The ocean is my homeland. If you are with me, come to the ocean. If not, stop interfering with me and go back to the chicken coop.
Elif Shafak
Mr. Schlubb, the pear-shaped PE teacher, sent us all out to run half a dozen laps around a preposterously enormous cinder track. For the Greenwood kids—all of us white, marshmallowy, innately unphysical, squinting unfamiliarly in the bright sunshine—it was a shock to the system of an unprecedented order.
Bill Bryson
A godly mother loves God with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength, and teaches her children to do the same.
Elizabeth George
I'm going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.'...We sat there, side by side, on the old wooden bench, not saying anything. I thought about adults. I wondered if that was true: if they were all really children wrapped in adult bodies, like children books hidden in the middle of dull, long books. The kind with no pictures or conversations.
Neil Gaiman
Our children belong to God. We're only given them on loan from heaven. Sometimes God calls them home sooner tan we expected.
Scarlet Wilson
A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done, cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction. A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed: the same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have represented as meetly my subsequent condition.
Charlotte Brontë
As far as she could see, children mostly argued, shouted, ran around very fast, laughed loudly, picked their noses, got dirty and sulked.
Terry Pratchett
This shows you that even mistakes are sometimes valuable, so do not be hard on grown-up people if they are wrong sometimes.
E Nesbit
Who's Johnnie Walker?""It's a drink. For grown-ups.""Is it nice?""Makes you drunk.""What's it like being drunk?" "Like being awake and asleep at the same time.""Sounds nice." "It was meant to sound terrible," he said looking down his glasses at her. "You get sick and stagger around. People actually vomit sometimes.
Tom Rachman
The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons, but children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed.
G.K. Chesterton
It's all your fault, Mother,' said Larry austerely; 'you shouldn't have brought us up to be so selfish.' 'I like that!' exclaimed Mother. 'I never did anything of the sort!' 'Well, we didn't get as selfish as this without some guidance,' said Larry.
Gerald Durrell
It’s never too early to begin pointing your little ones’ souls heavenward.
Elizabeth George
The seed of a blue lupin will usually produce a blue lupin. But the seed of a blue-eyed man may produce a brown-eyed bore...especially if his wife has a taste for gigolos.
Beverley Nichols
And why is it that so many years later it is so easy to distinguish the bullies from their prey? Adult bodies surrounding the children of long ago. The years have changed nothing.
Leila Aboulela
No sight better expresses the politics of aid, the dynamics of the West and the developing countries, than the image of children, happy or in need.
Zia Haider Rahman
Parenting is a partnership. Loving each other has a big impact on your children.
Elizabeth George
I've never outgrown that feeling of mild pride, of acceptance, when children take your hand.
Ian McEwan
Well, Mr Markham, you that maintain that a boy should not be shielded from evil, but sent out to battle against it, alone and unassisted - not taught to avoid the snares of life, but boldly to rush into them, or over them, as he may - to seek danger rather than shun it, and feed his virtue by temptation - would you-''I beg your pardon, Mrs Graham - but you get on too fast. I have not yet said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life - or even wilfully to seek temptation for the sake of exercising his virtue by overcoming it - I only say that it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe; and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hot-house, tending it carefully night and day, and shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements, and not even sheltered form the shock of the tempest.''Granted; but would you use the same arguments with regard to a girl?''Certainly not.''No; you would have her to be tenderly and delicately nurtured, like a hot-house plant - taught to cling to others for direction and support, and guarded, as much as possible, from the very knowledge of evil. But will you be so good as to inform me why you make this distinction? Is it that you think she has no virtue?''Assuredly not.''Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith. It must be, either, that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded that she cannot withstand temptation - and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin, is at once to make her a sinner, and the greater her knowledge, the wider her liberty, the deeper will be her depravity - whereas, in the nobler sex, there is a natural tendency to goodness, guarded by a superior fortitude, which, the more it is exercised by trials and dangers, it is only further developed-''Heaven forbid that I should think so!' I interrupted her at last.'Well then, it must be that you think they are both weak and prone to err, and the slightest error, the nearest shadow of pollution, will ruin the one, while the character of the other will be strengthened and embellished - his education properly finished by a little practical acquaintance with forbidden things. Such experience, to him (to use a trite simile), will be like the storm to the oak, which, though it may scatter the leaves, and snap the smaller branches, serves but to rivet the roots, and to harden and condense the fibres of the tree. You would have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience, while our daughters must not even profit by the experience of others.
Anne Brontë
On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provision for discourse. In the present case it took up ten minutes to determine whether the boy were most like his father or mother, and in what particular he resembled either, for of course every body differed, and every body was astonished at the opinion of the others.
Jane Austen
Sometimes the wisdom of the elderly is equivalent to that of a child.
Charles Lee
Sometimes it seemed difficult for the adults in Sophie's life to tell between 'carried away' and 'absolutely correct but unbelieved.
Katherine Rundell
Children are meant to grow up, and not to become Peter Pans. Not to lose innocence and wonder, but to proceed on the appointed journey: that journey upon which it is certainly not better to travel hopefully than to arrive, though we must travel hopefully if we are to arrive.
J.R.R. Tolkien
For I do not believe God means us thus to divide life into half halves - to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out-of-place to even so much as mention Him on a weekday. Do you think he cares to see only kneeling figures, and to hear only tones of prayer - and that He does not also love to see the lambs leaping in the sunlight, and to hear the merry voices of the children as they roll among the hay? Surely their innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from the 'dim religious light' of some solemn cathedral?
Lewis Carroll
If the day ever comes that it (Deep Space Nine) isn't safe for kids to run around this station we all need to pack up and go home.
Una McCormack
It takes dedicated parents to produce consecrated children.
Elizabeth George
The role of godly parents is to make sure that the hearts and minds of their children are saturated with the Word of God.
Elizabeth George
Could I speak to you for a moment, madam?' said Nannie to Agnes.It was at moments of crisis like this that Mary chiefly envied her Aunt Agnes's imperturbable disposition. Most mothers feel a hideous sinking at the heart when these fatal words are pronounced, but Agnes only showed a kindly and inactive interest.In anyone else Mary might have suspected unusual powers of bluff, hiding trembling knees, a feeling of helpless nausea, flashes of light behind the eyes, storm in the brain, and a general desire to say 'Take double your present wages, but don't tell me what it is you want to speak to me about.' But Agnes, placidly confident in the perfection of her own family and the unassailable security of her own existence, was only capable of feeling a mild curiosity and barely capable of showing it.
Angela Thirkell
The Unexpected GiftTorn asunder from her slumberin the hour of half past threeThe child knew the tyrannical regimeand followed instinctively.-(slice from Enigmatic Evolution)
Muse
A book for children, like the myths and folktales that tend to slide into it, is really a blueprint for dealing with life. For that reason, it might have a happy ending, because nobody ever solved a problem while believing it was hopeless. It might put the aims and the solution unrealistically high – in the same way that folktales tend to be about kings and queens – but this is because it is better to aim for the moon and get halfway there than just to aim for the roof and get halfway upstairs.
Diana Wynne Jones
Tender Ember...Barred and brandedto be forever unlovedI was a tender emberseeking solace from above...
Muse
Faith in Jesus is the most important event in the history of a child’s life.
Elizabeth George
...children are at heart selfish, and reasonably so, for they are programmed for survival.
Ian McEwan
You stupid piece of warm bacon.
Hugh Lofting
What was she dreaming about, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, seeing her engrossed, as she stood there, with some thought of her own, so that she had to repeat the message twice––ask Mildred if Andrew, Miss Doyle, and Mr. Rayley have come back?––The words seemed to be dropped into a well, where, if the waters were clear, they were also so extraordinarily distorting that, even as they descended, one saw them twisting about to make Heaven knows what pattern on the floor of the child's mind.
Virginia Woolf
You mustn’t throw them away. Let me have them.
Diane Samuels
What is it about me that gets them all crying? It’s not the end of the world.
Diane Samuels
Are you keeping up your good studies at school and working as hard as you always did?
Diane Samuels
Upstairs on a bus! It’s Unbelievable
Diane Samuels