Children quotes
25.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside children — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"It's a paradox that most parents would never let their children associate with an undesirable person in their neighborhood, but many think nothing of letting them associate with the same type every day on TV."
"So the days pass, and I ask myself whether one is not hypnotized, as a child by a silver globe, by life, and whether this is living."
"The taste for books was an early one. As a child he was sometimes found at midnight by a page still reading. They took his taper away, and he bred glow-worms to serve his purpose. They took the glow-worms away and he almost burnt the house down with a tinder."
"I do think all good and evil comes from words. I have to tune myself into a good temper with something musical, and I run to a book as a child to its mother."
"I need a little language such as lovers use, words of one syllable such as children speak when they come into the room and find their mother sewing and pick up some scrap of bright wool, a feather, or a shred of chintz. I need a howl; a cry. When the storm crosses the marsh and sweeps over me where I lie in the ditch unregarded I need no words. Nothing neat. Nothing that comes down with all its feet on the floor. None of those resonances and lovely echoes that break and chime from nerve to nerve in our breasts making wild music, false phrases. I have done with phrases."
"For she was a child, throwing bread to the ducks, between her parents who stood by the lake, holding her life in her arms which, as she neared them, grew larger and larger in her arms, until it became a whole life, a complete life, which she put down by them and said, "This is what I have made of it! This!" And what had she made of it? What, indeed?"
"Vimes's lack of interest in other people's children was limitless."
"Child. That was a terrible thing to say to anyone who was almost thirteen."
"You can't make people happy by law. If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago "Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world's music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, traveling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don't have to die of dental abscesses and you don't have to do what the squire tells you" they'd think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say "yes.""
"Strength enough to build a home, Time enough to hold a child, Love enough to break a heart"
"I don't regret it, you know. I would do it all again. Children are our hope for the future." THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THE FUTURE, said Death. "What does it contain, then?" ME."
"It was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far enough away not to hear what they were actually saying."
"Real children do not go hoppity skip unless they are on drugs."
"The thing is, 'Discworld' had been going on for a very long time, and I've written children's books as well. Usually when people have a really big series they franchise it, which I thought is a bit of a no-no, so I thought what I'd do is I'd franchise it to myself."
"Hello, inner child, I'm the inner babysitter!"
"If you want to change a whole people, then you start with the girls. It stands to reason: they learn faster, and they pass on what they learn to their children."
"I think I work much harder on the children's books. I suppose I enjoy that. I find it interesting that although there are more than 30 books in the Discworld series, it is the four that were written for children which have won the awards. I've never been quite certain why this is."
"Oh, where are my manners? Do sit down. Pull up a small child."
"Granny bit her lip. She was never quite certain about children, thinking of them-when she thought about them at all-as coming somewhere between animals and people. She understood babies. You put milk in one end and kept the other as clean as possible. Adults were even easier, because they did the feeding and cleaning themselves. But in between was a world of experience that she had never really inquired about. As far as she was aware, you just tried to stop them catching anything fatal and hoped that it would all turn out all right."
"As far as Death was aware, the sole reason for any human association with pigs and lambs was as a prelude to chops and sausages. Quite why they should dress up for children’s wallpaper as well was a mystery. Hello, little folk, this is what you’re going to eat… He felt that if only he could find the key to it, he’d know a lot more about human beings."
