Famous Quotes about childhood

Nicole Krauss quote #157 from The History of Love

Once upon a time there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists in a house that no longer exists on the edge of a field that no longer exists where everything was discovered and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword a pebble could be a diamond a tree a castle. Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In the autumn light her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls and when the sky grew dark and they parted with leaves in their hair.Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.
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L.M. Montgomery quote #168 from My Dear Mr. M: Letters to G.B. Macmillan from L.M. Montgomery

... I grew up out of that strange dreamy childhood of mine and went into the world of reality. I met with experiences that bruised my spirit - but they never harmed my ideal world. That was always mine to retreat into at will. I learned that that world and the real world clashed hopelessly and irreconcilably and I learned to keep them apart so that the former might remain for me unspoiled. I learned to meet other people on their own ground since there seemed to be no meeting place on mine. I learned to hide the thoughts and dreams and fancies that had no place in the strife and clash of the market place. I found that it was useless to look for kindred souls in the multitude one might stumble on such here and there but as a rule it seemed to me that the majority of people lived for the things of time and sense alone and could not understand my other life. So I piped and danced to other peoples piping - and held fast to my own soul as best I could.
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Denis Johnson quote #78 from Train Dreams

Now he slept soundly through the nights and often he dreamed of trains and often of one particular train He was on it he could smell the coal smoke a world went by. And then he was standing in that world as the sound of the train died away. A frail familiarity in these scenes hinted to him that they came from his childhood. Sometimes he woke to hear the sound of the Spokane International fading up the valley and realized hed been hearing the locomotive as he dreamed.
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Israelmore Ayivor quote #178 from The Great Hand Book of Quotes

As a child I used to wonder why markets in my locality were all situated near the main roads. I grew up a little to get the answer that business minded people can meet there easily Your dream must be situated where they can meet people
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Lisa Tuttle quote #53 from The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16

In the jumbled fragmented memories I carry from my childhood there are probably nearly as many dreams as images from waking life. I thought of one which might have been my earliest remembered nightmare. I was probably about four years old - I dont think Id started school yet - when I woke up screaming. The image I retained of the dream the thing which had frightened me so was an ugly clown-like doll made of soft red and cream-coloured rubber. When you squeezed it bulbous eyes popped out on stalks and the mouth opened in a gaping scream. As I recall it now it was disturbingly ugly not really an appropriate toy for a very young child but it had been mine when I was younger at least until Id bitten its nose off at which point it had been taken away from me. At the time when I had the dream I hadnt seen it for a year or more - I dont think I consciously remembered it until its sudden looming appearance in a dream had frightened me awake.When I told my mother about the dream she was puzzled.But whats scary about that You were never scared of that doll.I shook my head meaning that the doll Id owned - and barely remembered - had never scared me. But it was very scary I said meaning that the reappearance of it in my dream had been terrifying.My mother looked at me baffled. But its not scary she said gently. Im sure she was trying to make me feel better and thought this reasonable statement would help. She was absolutely amazed when it had the opposite result and I burst into tears.Of course she had no idea why and of course I couldnt explain. Now I think - and of course I could be wrong - that what upset me was that Id just realized that my mother and I were separate people. We didnt share the same dreams or nightmares. I was alone in the universe like everybody else. In some confused way that was what the doll had been telling me. Once it had loved me enough to let me eat its nose now it would make me wake up screaming. My Death
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Steve Rasnic Tem quote #45 from The Man on the Ceiling

I was never very good with either my hands or feet. It always seemed to me theyd just been stuck on as an afterthought during my making. Dreams didnt translate through sports or music dancing carpentry plumbing. I was the bookish kid more at home in the pages of a fantasy than in the room in the town on the planet.
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