Childhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.
—Jean Cocteau, 1947Quotes
The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
—Edward VIII, 1957No one’s serious at seventeen.
—Arthur Rimbaud, 1870Childhood has no forebodings—but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.
—George Eliot, 1860Ah, there are no children nowadays.
—Molière, 1673A sick child is always the mother’s property; her own feelings generally make it so.
—Jane Austen, 1816The young man must store up, the old man must use.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 63Youth, youth, springtime of beauty.
—Anthem of the National Fascist Party, c. 1924Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.
—Jean de La Bruyère, 1688The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
—Donald Barthelme, 1964Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.
—Herbert Hoover, 1936I was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old.
—Groucho Marx, 1959There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.
—Mark Twain, 1876