Child Actors Quotes

Dakota Fanning is a child, but she is a wonderful actor. I don't know what a child actor is. She's an actor who's a child. ~ Denzel Washington

I had to take a moment to wonder who else fell into this category of default enemy. I went through a mental list of people who, in theory, I'd want to hit in the face with a meat tenderizer. My coworker from ten years ago who owes me like three grand? It was ten years ago! You were addicted to OxyContin! Go! Be free! My seventh-grade teacher, who told me that most child actors don't succeed as adult actors? You just wanted to scare me into having a backup plan! Farewell! Good luck! Tori from fourth grade, who accused me of writing mean stuff about all our friends on the playground wall? BURN IN HELL, TORI. I KNOW IT WAS YOU!!! I'm still working on it. ~ Anna Kendrick

So often when you meet child actors, they're weird - they're freaks. No, I mean it, they're really odd people. ~ Helen McCrory

There's a constant flow of child actors. It's kind of funny to watch the new crew come through. I think, You poor little things. You're going to have to struggle for a long time. ~ Tina Yothers

I had great parents, and they trained me well and instilled great values in me. They also taught me common sense about money and that I couldn't count on the good fortune of doing a show forever. Therefore, I never spent money I didn't have and didn't end up destitute like other child actors. ~ Ken Osmond

Some kids are fine, but often I don't like what I see in child actors. My kids are young and they are already showing an interest, so I have to try to discourage them, squash that in them. ~ John Leguizamo

'Parenthood' has been the beneficiary of wonderful performances by child actors. ~ Jason Katims

I was a child actor in radio, and there's not many of us left. ~ Dick Van Patten

I credit my mom Debbie for creating a solid family base, ... She gave me a strong sense of reality so I could avoid falling into the normal pitfalls of child actors. ~ Elijah Wood

Most child actors were lucky enough to get the part in the first place. ~ Danny Bonaduce

A lot of child actors keep acting for the wrong reasons. ~ Nicholas Hoult

I don't know if child actors are necessarily more screwed up than most people. ~ Rider Strong

Child actors going on to become adult actors never really works, apart from a few. Jodie Foster was the exception. ~ Mark Lester

I think a lot of people who are child actors - it's a weird thing. ~ Lorelei Linklater

The hardest thing in acting is going from child actor to adult actor. It's taken me a long time. ~ Shia Labeouf

A lot of the time with child actors, you get the feeling they're trying to have a kind of poise or presentation that's beyond their years that might be put on, but also might be because they've spent years just hanging out with adults and they don't even have a sense of what it's like to grow up with kids their own age. ~ Alessandro Nivola

Kids kill a show! It's, like, a fun concept when the character is pregnant, but then if a show runs for a while, I'm sorry, but it gets annoying when it starts to talk. You get a child actor in there, and unless that child actor is freakin' awesome, it's going to be annoying. ~ Eliza Coupe

In the movies, the child actors were doing real homework to make the scene more realistic. ~ Mariah Caitlyn

Unlike me, a lot of child actors are very short, which is why they work. So when they're 15 they can play 11 or when they're 18 they can play 14. They look young for so long, they have abilities a much younger kid wouldn't have. ~ Cynthia Nixon

My memoir is about my time in film and the decision to leave Hollywood, grow up, and stop pretending. ~ Lisa Jakub

I know you hear horror stories about child actors, but I think in my family when I did start acting it was never a big deal. ~ Ashley Johnson

I have had the occasion to meet child actors from the '60s and '70s at various functions, and everyone's gone on to various different lives - they're real-estate agents or surfers. ~ Mike Lookinland

Most child actors, once they hit 18, once they hit 21, that's it. Even teenage kids often don't make the transition. ~ Cynthia Nixon

Acting is not about being someone different. It's finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there. ~ Meryl Streep

I never dreamed that shooting a film would be so hard. There was less regulation then of child actors' hours. Even the concept of acting confused me. ~ Tatum O'Neal

After an 18-year career, I left the film industry, not wanting to become one of those child-actor cautionary tales. ~ Lisa Jakub

I enjoyed meeting Emma [Watson]. I have a soft spot in my heart for child actors growing up. I know how hard that is. Having gone through that experience myself, I have a lot of sensitivity to it. For lack of a better word, I just feel like I love these kids, and I want them all to grow up and love themselves, and not get caught up in the wrong things, and to learn all the different things this profession has to give, and to understand it. ~ Ethan Hawke

I was a child actor. I was this spaz kid diagnosed with ADHD, and I worked all the time. ~ Fergie

The interesting thing with child actors is that kids are natural actors. They're wonderful actors, and most kids are acting all the time. They're imagining they're out in the yard playing. They're imagining that things happened, and they can get very vivid. ~ Clint Eastwood

I can't say I was unhappy as a child actor in films. I had a particularly wonderful time. ~ Roddy McDowall

I could have gone the route of a lot of these former child actors, but I didn't want that for myself. Like I said, when I was 14 years old, I decided to quit. I didn't ever want to do it again. ~ Macaulay Culkin

I used to feel compelled to respond. Once I contacted the author of a list of "Ugliest Former Child Actors" to ask her why, as a woman, she was punishing other women for the way they looked. She wrote back immediately to apologise. "I write stupid things on the internet to pay the bills," she said. "I can't afford integrity. ~ Mara Wilson

Just keep learning from the role and not just go for the money. ~ Haley Joel Osment

When child actors act well they're just reacting to situations, and they're acting very real because their life experience is so short; there's no history to fall back on. ~ Mariel Hemingway

When I was a child actor, I had the fear that I was going to be cast as the tree. ~ Vin Diesel

A lot of times what happens is, not even just with child actors, but people in general, is they get so caught up in the now. The hot song, the hot TV show, the hot movie. You're not saying 'OK, this is cool, but where am I trying to be 20 years from now?' That's always been in the forefront of my mind. ~ Malcolm-Jamal Warner

Adolescence is a tough one to be a child actor. ~ Jodie Foster

A disobedient child is one who blinks of his own volition, without being told to or even looked at. That's usually when I get out the Behavior Cloth (a blindfold). ~ Jarod Kintz

I don't remember being a child, and that's why I think I'm so child-like now in my unending curiosity and approach to life. ~ Marianne Wiggins

Survey 2001: Men who never married, never had a child, worked full time and were college educated earn only 85% of what women with the same criteria earn. ~ Warren Farrell

I'm a third-culture child. It's an interesting concept. Having an American father, a South American mother, born in England, grew up in Hong Kong, went to school in Europe - it makes me a third-culture child, which means you take on the culture of the place where you live. So I'm very adaptable. ~ Marie-Chantal Claire

From all these facts there emerges a very simple abstract program for the teacher to follow in keeping the attention of the child: Begin with the line of his native interests, and offer him objects that have some immediate connection with these. ~ William James

Since each child reads only about six hundred books in the course of childhood, each book should nourish them in some way - with new ideas, insight, humor, or vocabulary. ~ Joan Aiken

From being a writer of plays, it was not that surprising that somebody thought of giving me a job as an actor. After I played one part, others came along. ~ Wallace Shawn

I was very innocent and shielded as a child, so I didn't know a lot about music or dancing. When I was in Primary Six, no one would participate in a talent show, so I decided to go on. When the audience applauded me, I felt euphoric, and I started dancing right after that! ~ Rain

I am aware it's easy and may be fashionable to pose with a slum child, and the irony of getting the media along means that it can come across as disingenuous. But you take these things on board, and you hope you mean it whenever you get stuck into something. ~ Erin O'Connor

The visual stuff just lives inside of you. As far as really being able to take care of an actor on a set, how to talk to an actor, and how to get what you need out of a scene is probably where I might know a thing or two. Although, in TV, the actors are pretty much left alone. It's really the writer's medium more than anything. ~ Drea De Matteo

I learned that the story has no beginning, and no story has an end. That the story is all muddle, all middle. That the story is never true, but that the lie is indeed a child of silence. By ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

As a child, I always wanted to be the last one to take a bath because I knew I could close the door and spend hours just having my bath and singing. ~ Euzhan Palcy

Our kids are growing up with more privilege than we had; that's true for most of my friends in L.A. I don't know any actor who grew up with any particular privilege, so everyone wrestles with this. And I think, a lot of times, it's about being patient with your kids. ~ Matt Damon

I was brought up in a house full of women; the first time I realised no one was interrupting me was when I was on stage - that's probably the subconscious reason I became an actor. ~ Eddie Marsan

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. ~ Amanda Hocking

Dissociative Identity Disorder...is initially a useful coping response to an environment which is very difficult to endure. The problem is that dissociative responses-such as switching, blanking out, or going into a trance-become automatic, and, once the original abusive environment has been left behind, are of little use in life and may be detrimental. ~ Elizabeth Howell

To pastors and teachers
Compose catechisms particularly to teach prayer, not by reasoning nor by method, for the simple are incapable thereof; but to teach the prayer of the heart, not of the understanding; the prayer of God's Spirit, not of man's invention.
Alas! By wanting them to pray in elaborate forms ... you create their chief obstacles. The children have been led astray from the best of fathers, by your endeavouring to teach them too refined, too polished a language ...
A father is much better pleased with an address which love and respect in the child throws into disorder, because he knows it proceeds from the heart, than by a formal and barren harangue, though ever so elaborate in the composition. The simple and undisguised emotions of filial love are infinitely more expressive than all language and all reasoning. ~ Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

To see Ramses, at fourteen months, wrinkling his brows over a sentence like 'The theology of the Egyptians was a compound of fetishism, totem-ism and syncretism' was a sight as terrifying as it was comical. Even more terrifying was the occasional thoughtful nod the child would give.
...the room was dark except for one lamp, by whose light Emerson was reading. Ramses, in his crib, contemplated the ceiling with rapt attention. It made a pretty little family scene, until one heard what was being said. '...the anatomical details of the wounds, which included a large gash in the frontal bone, a broken malar bone and orbit, and a spear thrust which smashed off the mastoid process and struck the atlas vertebra, allow us to reconstruct the death scene of the king.' ... From the small figure in the cot came a reflective voice. 'It appeaws to me that he was muwduwed.'...' a domestic cwime.'...'One of the ladies of the hawem did it, I think.' I seized Emerson by the arm and pushed him toward the door, before he could pursue this interesting suggestion. ~ Elizabeth Peters

Do not weep for those who have found Death's embrace early, for they weep for us that linger on in this mortal world of pain. ~ Stewart Stafford

Lovely Alyssa. What a grand pupil you were," he mumbles, his mouth on the top of my head. "Yet you taught me more than I taught you. You are far more worthy to wear the crown than any other. Courage, compassion, and wisdom. The triad of majesties. You have something I could see even through the eyes of a child. You have the heart of a queen. ~ A.G. Howard

One hundred percent my mother, who would always say, "If you want something done, do it yourself." She must have said that 100 times to me - as a child, as a young woman, yesterday on the phone. ~ Reese Witherspoon

One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun. ~ Jane Goodall

First off, I call them "children", not "kids". I am a child, and I am not ashamed to be one; time will cure this unfortunate condition. "Kid" is the cutesy name adults call children, because they think "child" sounds too scientific and clinical. I refuse to call myself by their idiotic pet name. Your grandmother might call you "Snugglepants Lovebotton", but that's not how you introduce yourself to strangers.
I also refuse to use terms like "teen", "tween", and etc. I find them patronizing and putrid. They are fake words, used to disguise the truth--that anyone under the age of eighteen is legally (and that's the only thing that matters) a child. ~ Josh Lieb

The Law of the Twelve Tables, a Roman legislation circa 450 BC, actually required a father to put to death any deformed child (Cito necatus insignis ad deformitatem puer esto). (Modern moral philosophers, like Joseph Fletcher and Princeton University's Peter Singer, advocate the same thing.) ~ Robert J. Hutchinson

Parenthood always involves recognizing your child as separate and different from you. ~ Andrew Solomon

It is the plight of every child to have depth their parents can scarcely imagine. ~ Neal Shusterman

I don't think it's necessary to be an actor to get great performances out of an actor. But I do think it helps me as a director because I know what I like as an actor, and I try to get that to the actors who I'm working with. ~ Steve Buscemi

A child speaks more sense than an adult half of the time. ~ Zoe Saldana

Colby's resourceful, I'll give him that."
"You used to be good friends."
"We were, until he started hanging around Cecily," came the short reply. "I'm not as angry at him as I was. But it seems that he has to have a woman to prop him up."
"Not necessarily," Matt replied. "Sometimes a good woman can save a bad man. It's an old saying, but fairly true from time to time. Colby was headed straight to hell until Cecily put him on the right track. It's gratitude, but I don't think he can see that just yet. He's in between mourning his ex-wife and finding someone to replace her." He leaned back again. "I feel sorry for him. He's basically a one-woman man, but he lost the woman."
Tate packed back to the wing chair and sat down on the edge. "He's not getting Cecily. She's mine, even if she doesn't want to admit it."
Matt stared at him. "Don't you know anything about women in love?"
"Not a lot," the younger man confessed. "I've spent the better part of my life avoiding them."
"Especially Cecily," Matt agreed. "She's been like a shadow. You didn't miss her until you couldn't see her behind you anymore."
"She's grown away from me," Tate said. "I don't know how to close the gap. I know she still feels something for me, but she wouldn't stay and fight for me." He lifted his gaze to Matt's hard face. "She's carrying my child. I want both of them, regardless of the adjustments I have to make. Cecily's the only woman I've ever truly wanted."
Matt s ~ Diana Palmer

The great actors of history cannot be neatly tucked between the covers of a book and filed away like so many pressed botanical specimens. Their actions cannot be explained according to a specific timetable like the coming and going of so many trains. Although scholars may designate the beginning and ending of an era with exact precision, great historical events, particularly those that erupt suddenly and violently, build up slowly, and, once having begun, never end. Their effects linger long after the action faded from view. Like the tingling vibrations of a bell that we can still sense well after it has stopped ringing, Genghis Khan has long passed from the scene, but his influence continues to reverberate through our time. ~ Jack Weatherford

One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child. ~ Randall Jarrell

I Keep Six Honest Serving Men ..."

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views;
I know a person small -
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!

She sends'em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes -
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys! ~ Rudyard Kipling

Being sent to bed is a terrible command to all children, because it means the most public possible humiliation in front of adults, the confession that they bear the stigma of childhood, of being small and having a child's need for sleep. ~ Stefan Zweig

My goal has always been to be a working actor. ~ Bryan Cranston

I Promise You
A message of hope from a wonderful Mother

I am here to walk you
Through this journey called life
I will look after you
Until you can do so on your own
I know you need my help for now
Yes, I assure you my lovely one
I shall hold your hand no matter what
And stand by you, even in the darkest night
Will ensure your days are bright

Indeed, the Earth can be so rough
Just like the ocean changes its tide
Fear not, for I will be on your side
With you, I will fly high
Until we go to the skies
And touch the shining stars
I will not let my scars
Stop me from being kind
To you my precious child

I will be there
Until the end
I promise you! ~ Gift Gugu Mona

To have a good friend is the purest of all God's gifts, for it is a love that has no exchange of payment. It is not inherited, as with a family. It is not compelling, as with a child. And it has no means of physical pleasure, as with a mate. It is, therefore, an indescribable bond that brings with it a far deeper devotion than all the others. ~ Frances Farmer

The waiters carried themselves with a quiet joy, as if their entire mission in life was to make their customers feel comfortable and well tended. ~ Julia Child

Actors are players and if they're hot, or onto something, you let them go, or you and the actor can both get on to something. I always run out with lines as I think of them. ~ William Monahan

Carrie could not remember how long it was since some other person had cherished her. Had said, 'You look tired.' And, 'How about a little rest?' She had spent too many years being strong, looking after others and their problems...The day progressed, and through her window Carrie watched the weather and was glad she did not have to be out in it. Snow showers came and went; the sky was grey. From time to time she heard the faint keening of wind, whining around the old house. It was all rather cosy. She remembered as a child being ill, and in bed, and the awareness of others getting on with the business of day-to-day life without herself having to participate in any sort of way. Telephones rang, and someone else hurried to answer the call. Footsteps came and went; from behind the closed door, voices called and answered. Doors opened and shut. Towards noon, there came smells of cooking. Onions frying, or perhaps a pot of soup on the boil. The luxuries of self-indulgence, idleness, and total irresponsibility were all things that Carrie had long forgotten. ~ Rosamunde Pilcher

During sexual abuse, children feel and incorporate the rage, pain, shame, and sense of perversion that the perpetrator is projecting. They take these feelings into the very core of themselves, and they are badly traumatized by the emotions surrounding the assault, as well as by the assault itself. ~ Renee Fredrickson

No child should ever be too sad to play. ~ Andrew Galasetti