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Every night we took turns dying.
One would lie down while the other
folded the corpse's hands and,
with the true solemnity of children,
brought flowers.

—Mark Doty

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When I was a kid, I had two friends, and they were imaginary and they would only play with each other.

—Rita Rudner

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Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.

—Walt Steightiff

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Growing old is mandatory.
Growing up is optional.

—Chili Davis

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It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

—e e cummings

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While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.

—Angela Schwindt

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You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.

—Franklin P. Jones

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If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.

—Albert Einstein

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We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.

—George Eliot

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A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to.

—Robert Brault

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It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

—Frederick Douglass

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Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.

—W.E.B. Du Bois

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Children will listen to you after they feel listened to.

—Jane Nelsen

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Childhoods never last, but everyone deserves one.

—Wendy Dale

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Thank you so much for having me.

—Laurie Anderson

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It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.

—Tom Robbins

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Poem: The Lanyard

Poem: Best Fall

Poem: On Turning Ten

Why did we all have the same childhood?

Poems about childhood

Children’s poems

21 Shel Silverstein poems

Growing up and other vices

What adults forget about friendship

The ever-shifting end of childhood

A new understanding of the childhood brain

I would have liked childhood more without the pressure to grow up

Capturing a kid’s-eye view of travel

Childhood

The lore and language of schoolchildren

The lore of the playground

‘Coronavirus tag’

Snow day rituals

Bloody Mary in the Mirror

Why your kid loves the garbage truck so much

Are you the same person you used to be?

The three chairs that define childhood

How children change the way we see

How to grant your child an inner life

How to recover from a happy childhood

My childhood in a cult

Revisiting my Rastafari childhood

We have ruined childhood

Let kids get bored. It’s good for them.

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