Old age lives minutes slowly, hours quickly; childhood chews hours and swallows minutes.
—Malcolm de Chazal (1902–81) Mauritian Writer, Painter, Visionary
Childhood is the fiery furnace in which we are melted down to essentials and that essential shaped for good.
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American Short-Story Writer, Novelist
There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.
—Graham Greene (1904–91) British Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
Everything else you grow out of, but you never recover from childhood.
—Beryl Bainbridge (1932–2010) British Novelist
When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood.
—Sam Ewing (b.1949) American Sportsperson
I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts.
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American Novelist, Playwright
Childhood is a disease — a sickness that you grow out of.
—William Golding (1911–93) English Novelist
A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy.
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. Nobody that matters, that is.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American Poet, Playwright, Feminist
The older I grow the more earnestly I feel that the few joys of childhood are the best that life has to give.
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945) American Novelist
The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.
—Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American Actor, Dancer, Singer
The greatest poem ever known
Is one all poets have outgrown:
The poetry, innate, untold,
Of being only four years old.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
I’d give all wealth that years have piled,
The slow result of Life’s decay,
To be once more a little child
For one bright summer day.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (1832–98) British Anglican Author, Mathematician, Clergyman, Photographer, Logician
A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canadian Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
The ages of seven to eleven is a huge chunk of life, full of dulling and forgetting. It is fabled that we slowly lose the gift of speech with animals, that birds no longer visit our windowsills to converse. As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder.
—Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian Singer, Songwriter, Poet, Novelist