Only Children Quotes

Aye," the prince said. "I told the story to Ser Balon, but not all of it. As the children splashed in the pools, Daenerys watched from amongst the orange trees, and a realization came to her. She could not tell the highborn from the low. Naked, they were only children. All innocent, all vulnerable, all deserving of long life, love, protection. "There is your realm," she told her son and heir, "remember them, on everything you do." My own mother said those same words to me when I was old enough to leave the pools. It is an easy thing for a prince to call the spears, but in the end the children pay the price. For their sake, the wise prince will wage non war without good cause, nor any war he cannot hope to win.
"I am not blind, nor deaf. I know that you all believe me weak, frightened, feeble. Your father knew me better. Oberyn was ever the viper. Deadly, dangerous, unpredictable. No man dared tread on him. I was the grass. Pleasant, complaisant, sweet-smelling, swaying with every breeze. Who fears to walk upon the grass? But it is the grass that hides the viper from his enemies and shelters him until he strikes. Your father and I worked more closely than you know...but now he is gone. The question is, can I trust his daughters to serve me in his place? ~ George R.R. Martin

Because I was an only, I had more things, and I remember early on the kick I got from giving stuff away. Despite all the myths about only children not being able to share, actually I've never knowingly met a stingy one. ~ Julie Burchill

I haven't met loads of asshole only children. If you fill a room with all the assholes you know, I bet that most of them have siblings. ~ Judy Greer

Well, the Story Girl was right. There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way ~ L.M. Montgomery

Religion is about God's truth, but none of us can grasp that truth absolutely, because of our own imperfections and limitations. We are only children of God, not God. Therefore, we must not attempt to fit God into little boxes, claiming that He supports this or that political position. This is not only bad theology; it marginalizes God. ~ Hillary Clinton

But that's not how most of the people mentioned in this book became wealthy. Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked. And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful. ~ Charles Ferguson

It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself. ~ Joyce Maynard

There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book. ~ Frank Serafini

I don't want to write for adults. I want to write for readers who can perform miracles. Only children perform miracles when they read. ~ Astrid Lindgren

Oh, my love,' she said. 'What do the only children do?'

'We'll never have to know. ~ Ann Patchett

I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it - seems that only children weep. Good night. ~ Harper Lee

Look, look at my country, look at my Kabul, my city, what is left of my city? The streets are as bare as mountains now, the buildings are as ragged as mountains and as bare and empty of life, there is no life here only fear, we do not live in the buildings now, we live in terror in the cellars in the caves in the mountains, only God can save us now, only order can save us now, only God's Law harsh and strictly administered can save us now, only The Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice can save us now, only terror can save us from ruin, only neverending war, save us from terror and neverending war, save my wife they are stoning my wife, they are chasing her with sticks, save my wife save my daughter from punishment by God, save us from God, from war, from exile, from oil exploration, from no oil exploration, from the West, from the children with rifles, carrying stones, only children with rifles, carrying stones, can save us now. ~ Tony Kushner

I bet you were all only children, or felt isolated, or busy "training" and stuff. I bet none of you can lay claim to knowing what a normal teen life is supposed to be! Geez, you're so judgmental, I wanna puke! ~ Cissie King-Jones Peter David

Acting on what you want is something only children think is an adult prerogative. ~ Mercedes Lackey

It could be that everyone who lives to adulthood dies one hit at a time. Only children like Stan die suddenly. ~ Ernie Wood

Only children tell the whole truth, you know. That's what makes them children. ~ Stephen King

I have a private theory, Sir, that there are no heroes and no monsters in this world. Only children should be allowed to use these words ~ Alfred De Vigny

Living in a small town ... is like living in a large family of rather uncongenial relations. Sometimes it's fun, and sometimes it's perfectly awful, but it's always good for you. People in large towns are like only-children. ~ Joyce Dennys

Also, I was living in the middle of my parents' marriage. No one ever says this about families, and maybe people who aren't only children don't even notice it, but half the time I feel like I'm this extra person watching them have a marriage. They fight, they kiss, they discuss the inlaws, they do projects, they take down the Christmas tree and reminisce about things I don't remember, they fight some more-and it's all this personal stuff that I really have no business witnessing, except I have nowhere else to go because I live here. I'm just trying to eat my dinner and instead I'm in the middle of this grown-up relationship that is complicated and disgustingly mushy and sometimes angry. ~ E. Lockhart

Once upon a time, there had been gods. Now there were only children going about in their dead parents' undergarments. ~ Laini Taylor

There were two kinds of storms, Alice thought. One was a friendly kind that you could enjoy watching out the window with a cup of tea. It crashed around in the sky with theatricality but no real malice.
This storm was the other, the killing kind. There are horrors that exist in the night, the bitter wind said, horrors that only children and demons can see. There are horrors that exist in the mind as well, that only the individual can bear witness to. The winter wind sang of things that the mind did not quite remember but that fear never forgot, filled as people are with the haunts and tragedies that make up the shadows of their lives. We can't endure them, the wind whispered, for when the light and warmth are truly taken we are left shivering naked in the dark. Then we hear a nearby husky chuckle that tells us we are prey. ~ Thea Harrison

...she did remember on time when she got her period, sliding open the cupboard under the bathroom sink to get a sanitary napkin; she remembered looking at the box of Stayfree pads and thinking that the box looked almost smug, seemed almost to be saying: Hello, Patty! We are your children. We are the only children you will ever have, and we are hungry. Nurse us. Nurse us on blood. ~ Stephen King

It's been my experience that only children never learn when to keep their fucking traps shut. An older brother would have beat that out of you. ~ Adrian McKinty

Most of us like thinking we are God's only children ... At least one of the purposes of church is to remind us that God has other children, easily as precious as we. Baptism and narcissism cancel each other out. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

We need to imagine a world in which every woman is the presiding genius of her own body. In such a world women will truly create new life, bringing forth not only children if and as we choose but the visions, and the thinking, necessary to sustain, console and alter human existence-a new relationship to the universe. Sexuality, politics, intelligence, power, motherhood, work, community, intimacy will develop new meanings; thinking itself will be transformed. This is where we have to begin. ~ Adrienne Rich

In my view, ordinary everyday sanity is harder for "only children" to achieve: they have nothing to moderate or dilute a parent's influence. It must be very liberating to be able to share your parents' attention, and indeed to have fellow offspring with whom you can actually discuss parental behaviour. I'm sure I could have dramatically cut the hours I spent in therapy if I had had a brother (or, better still, a sister) to whom I could have turned and asked, "What the hell has got into her today? ~ John Cleese

Women, then, are only children of a larger growth ~ Lord Chesterfield

A strange coldness had settled upon Achamian, the monolithic selfishness of which only children and madmen are sometimes capable. ~ R. Scott Bakker

In 1600 the specialization of games and pastimes did not extend beyond infancy; after the age of three or four it decreased and disappeared. From then on the child played the same games as the adult, either with other children or with adults ... Conversely, adults used to play games which today only children play. ~ Philippe Aries

Only children can get spoiled. You have to have at least two. Siblings are important. And if we start with two boys, we have to have a girl because brothers should have a sister. But if we start with two girls, we have to go for a boy because sisters should have a brother. I always wanted a brother. A son of my father would have been able to beat the shit out of boyfriends that broke my heart. I wouldn't have had to resort to cookie dough and it would have saved Scott a lot of money in divorce attorneys, seeing as he'd still be in a coma. I stopped ~ Kristen Ashley

Let me ask you: Should only children of the wealthy have access to quality early education? Should only children of the wealthy have access to a college degree? The answer - the only answer - is: no. ~ Lincoln Chafee

They looked like two children, she told me. And that thought frightened her, because she'd always felt that only children are capable of everything. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The welfare of a child is not to be measured by money only, nor by physical comfort only. ~ Ryan Lindley

Everyone knows that only children smile out of sheer delight. In a real adult smile, there is always something other than happiness. ~ Polly Rosenwaike

Institutional wisdom tells us that children need school. Institutional wisdom tells us that children learn in school. But this institutional wisdom is itself the product of schools because sound common sense tells us that only children can be taught in school. Only by segregating human beings in the category of childhood could we ever get them to submit to the authority of a schoolteacher. ~ Ivan Illich

This is the problem with only children, John decides, exhausted. They think they're the center of the universe, and that doesn't mean they feel special, it just means they think everything is their fault. ~ Metisket

I have learned over a period of time to be almost unconsciously grateful
as a child is
for a sunny day, blue water, flowers in a vase, a tree turning red. I have learned to be glad at dawn and when the sky is dark. Only children and a few spiritually evolved people are born to feel gratitude as naturally as they breathe, without even thinking. Most of us come to it step by painful step, to discover that gratitude is a form of acceptance. ~ Faith Baldwin

Intuitively, one would assume if you don't grow up with other children you might not learn that easy give and take. What often happens is that there are some only children who act that way, and that stands out more than the only children who seem to get along with others. ~ Peter Thomas

Maddy Patti and the Great Curiosity" is about an everyday hero, a youngster, who learns to live with his diabetes. Most relevant are "Tip" pages at book's end to help not only children, but also teachers and parents better understand diabetes. ~ Mary Bilderback Abel

Where the Wild Things Are was not meant to please everybody – only children. A letter from a seven-year-old boy encourages me to think that I have reached children as I had hoped. He wrote: 'How much does it cost to get to where the wild things are? If it is not expensive my sister and I want to spend the summer there. Please answer soon.' I did not answer that question, for I have no doubt that sooner or later they will find their way, free of charge. ~ Maurice Sendak

Only children are weird. The only children I know, including myself, are either superweird or very talented and special or a mix of the two. I think there was always a certain independence and loneliness - I had a lot of imaginary friends as a kid. ~ Rachel Bloom

What do the only children do? ~ Ann Patchett

The traditional paradigm of parenting has been very hierarchical, the parent knows best and very top down. Conscious parenting topples [this paradigm] on its head and creates this mutuality, this circularity where both parent and child serve each other and where in fact, perhaps, the child could be even more of a guru for the parent ... teaching the parent how the parent needs to grow, teaching the parent how to enter the present moment like only children know how to do. ~ Shefali Tsabary

I was an only child with a lot of time to kill. I suspect a lot of writers are only children, or only children become writers because it's a way of being alone. ~ Christopher Buckley

I was an only child. I've known only children. From this experience, I do believe that the children should outnumber the parents. ~ Jane Smiley

For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved. ~ Henri Nouwen

There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland. ~ L.M. Montgomery

There is no knowing how or why dread comes on a parent. Of course, many times apprehension arises when there is no reason for it at all. And it comes most often to the parents of only children, parents who have indulged in black dreams of loss. ~ John Steinbeck

This is the legacy of China's one-child policy, instituted in 1980 (and just officially ended in 2002). Studies have shown that only children and firstborns are usually smarter, more driven, and more accomplished than other children. And, of course, they are more often spoiled. In China one finds an entire country of only children. Everybody's child is special, smarter, more driven, and more accomplished - or ~ Jim Rogers

I must admit that the existence of Disneyland (which I know is real) proves that we are not living in Judaea in 50 AD ... Saint Paul would never go near Disneyland. Only children, tourists, and visiting Soviet high officials ever go to Disneyland. Saints do not. ~ Philip K. Dick

Why are you making no more songs?' I said to him in a tone like that. 'Why are you making no more songs?' 'I have grown to be a man. Only children make songs -- children and idiots.' [William the road-mender about Merlin] ~ John Steinbeck

Franny gave her sister a tired smile. "Oh, my love," she said. "What do the only children do?"

"We'll never have to know," Caroline said. ~ Ann Patchett

Sadly, children's passion for thinking often ends when they encounter a world that seeks to educate them for conformity and obedience only. ~ Bell Hooks

He couldn't see her, sitting outside in the darkness, looking in at the light. A pair of actors trapped in a recondite play with no hint of plot or narrative. Stumbiling through their parts nursing someone else's sorrow. Grieving someone else's grief. Unable somehow to change plays. Or purchase, for a fee some cheap brand of exorcism from a conveyor with a fancy degree, who would sit them down and say in one of many ways: " Your not the sinners. You're the sinned against. You were only children.You had no control. You are the victims, not the perpetrators." It would of helped if they could of made that crossing. If only they could have worn, even temporarily, the tragic hood of victim hood ~ Arundhati Roy

If only children could be more like diamonds. At least they could then be faceted by the numbers and shine according to the maker's cut and polish grade. Plus, diamonds did not get hurt. I almost slapped myself for constantly thinking about diamonds, even in terms of my own children, who, unlike diamonds, could actually love me back. ~ Chiara Kelly

Atticus
" ... said Jem bleakly. "How could they do it, how could they?"
"I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before & they did it tonight & they'll do it again & when they do it
seems that only children weep. ~ Harper Lee

...too often it's only children and old people who speak the truth. You just have to slow down and listen. ~ Eve Chase

Fawn types seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs and demands of others. They act as if they unconsciously believe that the price of admission to any relationship is the forfeiture of all their needs, rights, preferences and boundaries. They often begin life like the precocious children described in Alice Miler's 'The Drama Of The Gifted Child', who learn that a modicum of safety and attachment can be gained by becoming the helpful and compliant servants of their parents. They are usually the children of at least one narcissistic parent who uses contempt to press them into service- scaring and shaming them out of developing a healthy sense of self: an egoic locus of self-protection, self-care and self-compassion. ~ Pete Walker

Children, viewed from one angle, are philosophy in motion. ~ Anthony Lane

Children are like the zombies I once saw in a film at Dad's. We have to do as we're told and obey like our brains have got eaten. ~ Kate Hamer

In Japan, mothers insist on achievement and accomplishment as a sign of love and respect. Thus to fail places children in a highly shamed situation. ~ Michael Lewis

Children play soldier. That makes sense. But why do soldiers play children? ~ Karl Kraus

When your children are very young it is impossible to imagine a life where they will not live with you, where you will not see them every day or know what they are doing. As they grow up, you gradually untangle your 'self' from their 'selves' until the day arrives when you look at your child and realize the role you play in their life is no longer a central one. It's hard to recognize that your child is independent, but it's also incredibly liberating."
-- from Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story ~ Maureen Wheeler

I've often thought it unfair that women are expected to stay at home when there's a fight to be won. If a
woman has the strength to bear a child, she can swing a sword as well as any man. ~ Karen Hawkins

Children have to fly on a separate plane, and people older than 60 have to fly on a separate plane also, because for some reason, after you get a little older, you forget that when you pull on the seat in front of you to get up from your seat that the person sitting in that seat actually feels something. ~ Jay R. Ferguson

workers with children).1 Crime travels hand ~ Scott Martelle

Once you accept you're a child in the government nursery, why shouldn't Nanny tell you what to do? ~ Mark Steyn

The unknown energy that can help humanity is that which lies hidden in the child. ~ Maria Montessori

I liked the warmth of her body against mine and realized the pathos of being a human. Of being a mortal creature who was essentially alone but needed the myth of togetherness with others. Friends, children, lovers. It was an attractive myth. It was a myth you could easily inhabit. ~ Matt Haig

For her, Mr. Splitfoot is a two that is sometimes a one, mothers and their children, Nat and Ruth, life and death. "Are ~ Samantha Hunt

If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can't imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America's alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart - and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings. ~ Rita Dove

We always seem to be a bit surprised that our children are reflecting stuff that we are showing them. I don't know about you, but every movie that I saw when I was a kid, I emulated. I was Haley Mills for an entire summer and had an English accent. ~ Cheryl Ladd

I know plenty of people with kids in elite, private schools and had heard many stories. I have drifted into the homes of some of those very wealthy families in New York and am fascinated with the dynamic and how much freedom the children are given. ~ Jane Green

It is quite wrong to think of old age as a downward slope. On the contrary, one climbs higher and higher with the ad-vancing years, and that, too with sur-prising strides. Brain-work comes as easily to the old as physical exertion to the child. One is moving, it is true, towards the end of life, but that end is now a goal, and not a reef in which the vessel may be dashed. ~ George Sand

The goodness of God to mankind is no less evinced in the chastisement with which He corrects His children than in the smiles of His providence; for the Lord will not cast off forever, but though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. ~ Hosea Ballou

There is nothing wrong with technology. It's a gift! I don't think we should keep our kids away from the modern conveniences of our time, but I do believe it's time to regain some balance. Children can benefit from technology, but they need nature. Let them have their video games and Internet, but make sure they are getting equal amounts of mud, dirt, sticks, puddles, free play and imagination. ~ Brooke Hampton

Mikolay and Julia live in the same neighborhood and go to
the same school every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. ~ Magda M. Olchawska

I must work, so as not to be a fool, to get on, to become a journalist, because that's what I want! ... I can't imagine that I would have to lead the same sort of life as Mummyand all the women who do their work and are then forgotten. I must have something besides a husband and children, something that I can devote myself to! ~ Anne Frank

Sibling Rivalry

Yes, my mother was a better mother
To my sisters and brothers,

But they were better children

Than me, the prodigal who yearned
And spurned and never returned. ~ Sherman Alexie

Learning from their children is the best opportunity most people have to assure themselves of a meaningful old age. Sadly, most do not take this opportunity. ~ M. Scott Peck

We must all live so that our children do not have to pay for our deeds. ~ Andrejs Upits

Children are blessed with extremely low standards when it comes to what they regard as fun or funny. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Children who are not encouraged to do, to try, to explore, to master, and to risk failure, often feel helpless and inadequate. Over-controlled by anxious, fearful parents, these children often become anxious and fearful themselves. This makes it difficult for them to mature. Many never outgrow the need for ongoing parental guidance and control. As a result, their parents continue to invade, manipulate, and frequently dominate their lives. ~ Susan Forward

By our very endowment as children of an Eternal Father we have had implanted within our souls the urgency to be free. It is natural for us to want to be accountable for our own fates because there is a whispering within us confirming that this accountability is absolutely essential to the attainment of our eternal destiny. ~ Dean L. Larsen

I am just happy that I have children. I don't care what they want to do! ~ Chevy Chase

Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below! ~ Matthew Arnold

Many children fully realize their parents see them as astonishing creatures and incorporate that into their daily presentations. That is, they throw their stuff on the floor because if you are truly amazing you can pretty much do what you want. Right? ~ Bill O'Reilly

i used schutzhund methods of training to teach the duck to attack on command. we went on a killing rampage that lasted three days. we killed many small children and received the nobel prize for our achievements. ~ Ellen Kennedy

Children have a more restricted and yet a more intense feeling for nature than grown-ups. ~ Hermann Broch