Quotes on My Children

My black friends never asked me how much money I made, or what school my children went to, or anything like that. They just said, "Come as you are."

My children, the secret of religion lies not in theories but in practice.

Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art.

Hugs can do great amounts of good - especially for children.

I can never tell ahead of time which book will give me trouble - some balk every step of the way, others seem to write themselves - but certainly the mechanics of writing, finding the time and the psychic space, are easier now that my children are grown.

Black Power simply means: Look at me, I'm here. I have dignity. I have pride. I have roots. I insist, I demand that I participate in those decisions that affect my life and the lives of my children. It means that I am somebody.

Bear in mind, my children, that only cowards and those who are weak commit sin and tell lies. The brave are always moral. Try to be moral, try to be brave, try to be sympathising.

Everyone in Annawadi talks like this: 'Oh, I will make my child a doctor, a lawyer, and he will make us rich'. It's vanity, nothing more. Your little boat goes west and you congratulate yourself, 'what a navigator I am!' And then the wind blows you east.

Has he paid his dues? Is he black enough? John Lewis and I were out there marching and organizing sit-ins back in the '60s so that his children and my children would not have to do it. We would have been failures if had to do the same things we did.

I haven't inherited the earth from my parents, I am borrowing it from my children.

My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am, and keeps me from desiring to be otherwise; and yet, when I sometimes open a little box in which I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent, I cannot repress the thought, that after all I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage

Listen carefully, my child, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of your heart. Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving father's advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.

When I hear music, it seems to me that all the sins of my life pass slowly by me with veiled faces, lay their hands on my head, and say softly, "My child."

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.

Listen my children and you shall hear, Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere

The best time of my life has been the three instances where I have been there for the birth of my children. That is, nothing [else] has ever come close.

I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture.

What occurred to me on [‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’], and also with the passing of her mother, is that there's going to come a time when I'm not going to get to be with this person anymore. I'm not going to get to be with my children anymore. Or friends, people I love and respect. And so, if we have a flare-up, it evaporates now. I don't want to waste time being angry at someone I love.

We are living in a science-fiction nightmare where children are gasping for breath on bad-air days because somebody gave money to a politician. And my children and the kids of millions of other Americans can no longer go fishing and eat their catch because somebody gave money to a politician.

It is still just unbelievable to us that diarrhea is one of the leading causes of child deaths in the world.

Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children.