„Childhood is over when you know you’re gonna die.“

„Did you know that childhood is the only time in our lives when insanity is not only permitted to us, but expected?“

—  Louis De Bernières English novelist 1954

Zdroj: Corelli's Mandolin

„It is the bliss of childhood that we are being warped most when we know it the least.“

—  William Gaddis, kniha The Recognitions

Zdroj: The Recognitions

„A man's passion for the mountain is, above all, his childhood which refuses to die.“

—  Francois Mauriac French author 1885 - 1970

„If you need to talk about your childhood, you’re safe with me. If you need to break into a million pieces, I’m right here, Lev. I’ll find them all, I’m good at details, and I’ll put you back together. You’re safe here.“

—  Christine Feehan American writer

Zdroj: Water Bound

„We know we’ve come to a crossroads when German childhood is being held up as an idealized model for Americans.“

—  Adam Gopnik American journalist 1956

How to Raise a Prodigy, The New Yorker (2018)

„No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way.“

—  Alice Hoffman, kniha Practical Magic

Zdroj: Practical Magic

„They say that not matter how old you become, when you are with your siblings, you revert back to childhood.“

—  Karen White American writer 1964

Zdroj: The Memory of Water

„And if wishes were horses, I’d have been run over in childhood.“

—  Sherrilyn Kenyon Novelist 1965

Zdroj: Acheron

„We step not over the threshold of childhood till led by Love“

—  Letitia Elizabeth Landon English poet and novelist 1802 - 1838

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

„Man is the only animal that knows he's going to die, so we invent a heaven to keep from going crazy. Most people are hypnotized by organized religion from childhood.“

—  Grace Slick American musician, writer and painter 1939

Somebody to Love? (1998)

„He doesn't know it yet, but the infinity of childhood is brief.“

—  Michel Houellebecq, kniha Atomised

Zdroj: The Elementary Particles

„When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.“

—  Frank McCourt, kniha Angela's Ashes

Angela's Ashes (1996)

„Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself.“

—  Jiddu Krishnamurti Indian spiritual philosopher 1895 - 1986

Talks & Dialogues, Saanen (9 July1967) http://www.jkrishnamurti.com/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=41&chid=1, p. 86
1960s
Kontext: Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself. In a school, in an ordinary school where there are a lot of boys, when one boy is compared with another who is very clever, who is the head of the class, what is actually taking place? You are destroying the boy. That’s what we are doing throughout life. Now, can I live without comparison — without comparison with anybody? This means there is no high, no low — there is not the one who is superior and the other who is inferior. You are actually what you are and to understand what you are, this process of comparison must come to an end. If I am always comparing myself with some saint or some teacher, some businessman, writer, poet, and all the rest, what has happened to me — what have I done? I only compare in order to gain, in order to achieve, in order to become — but when I don’t compare I am beginning to understand what I am. Beginning to understand what I am is far more fascinating, far more interesting; it goes beyond all this stupid comparison.

„… It is not healing to see your childhood home, but it helps you measure whether you are broken, and how and why, assuming you want to know.“

—  Thomas Harris, Hannibal Rising

Zdroj: Hannibal Rising

„Imagine being sentient but not alive. Seeing and even knowing, but not alive. Just looking out. Recognizing but not being alive. A person can die and still go on. Sometimes what looks out at you from a person's eyes maybe died back in childhood.“

—  Philip K. Dick, kniha A Scanner Darkly

Zdroj: A Scanner Darkly

„What is it about childhood that never lets you go, even when you're so wrecked it's hard to believe you ever were a child?“

—  Mitch Albom, For One More Day

Zdroj: For One More Day

„Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic — if it is pulled out I shall die.“

—  Sören Kierkegaard Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism 1813 - 1855

1847
1840s

„No doubt some of your cousins and great-uncles died in childhood, but not a single one of your ancestors did. Ancestors just don't die young!“

—  Richard Dawkins, kniha The Selfish Gene

Zdroj: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 3. Immortal Coils

„How do you change ancient prejudices in any society? You do it through repositioning caste at childhood. If young children are taught respect over a bedtime story or in class, that could help enormously“

—  Kancha Ilaiah Indian scholar, activist and writer 1952

Quoted in "One Man Takes Aim At Prejudice With Storybook" at The Washington Post (20 January 2008) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011902412.html.