"I was a total loner, not by self-design. I just didn't know what the hell to say to people. I was so shy. I used to stammer and lisp and dribble at the mouth."
(Sir Anthony Hopkins, on his youth)

"I was born and raised with crocodiles; they are a piece of cake. But kids are so ... unpredictable."
(Steve Irwin, "Crocodile Hunter")

"I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn't bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn't have any brains. I didn't know what I was doing there. That's why I became an actor."
(Sir Anthony Hopkins)

"In some ways, I never outgrew my adolescence. I wake up in the morning and think, 'Oh my God, I'm late for a math test!' But then I say, 'Wait a minute. I'm 40.'"
(Daniel Clowes)

"Most people don't realize that large pieces of coral, which have been painted brown and attached to the skull by common wood screws, can make a child look like a deer."
(Jack Handey)

"Mothers spend a lifetime excising from their sons the influence of their fathers."
(Arthur Lotti)

"Murderers have been known to find that young girls give them more trouble than anybody else."
(Jean Cocteau, Les Enfants Terribles)

"My daughter has never forgiven me. for what, I don’t know, because for years, she won’t speak to me. She blackens my name in the press and makes me think abortion is an excellent idea."
(Klaus Kinski, on his daughter, Nastassja)

"No one ever owns his youth or the women he loves."
(Pedro Almodóvar, Live Flesh)

"People drag their progeny around with them like a ball and chain, like some terrible deadweight that hinders their every move - and that, as often as not, effectively winds up killing them."
(Michel Houellebecq, from Plateforme: Au milieu du monde)

"Sometimes I think children are the worst people alive. And even if they're not - even if some smiling toddler is as pure as Evian - it's only a matter of time ... As far as I can tell, the nicest thing you can say about children is that they haven't done anything terrible yet."
(Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs)

"The monster a child knows best and is most concerned with [is] the monster he feels or fears himself to be. "
(Bruno Bettelheim, child psychologist)

"The reason why kids are crazy is because nobody can face the responsibility of bringing them up."
(John Lennon)

"The rules for parents are but three... Love, Limit, and Let them be."
(Elaine M. Ward)

"What is most appealing about young folks, after all, is the changes, not the still photograph of finished character but the movie, the soul in flux."
(Thomas Pynchon)

"You make 'em, I amuse 'em."
(Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, 1904-1991, on children)

"Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you, they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls. For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but strive not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday."
(Kahlil Gibran)