“Until one looks back on one’s own past one fails to realise what an extraordinary view of the world a child has.”

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming… suddenly you find – at the age of 50, say – that a whole new life has opened before you.

There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger.

Books are a habit-forming drug.

If you’ve had a happy childhood, nobody can take that away from you.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves they don’t give a damn.

There’s too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.

One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.

Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.

Never tell all you know—not even to the person you know best.

Our weapon is our knowledge. But remember, it may be a knowledge we may not know that we possess.

Everybody said, “Follow your heart”. I did, it got broken.

What good is money if it can’t buy happiness?

One doesn’t recognize the really important moments in one’s life until it’s too late.

The young people think the old people are fools — but the old people know the young people are fools.

If you place your head in a lion’s mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.

Quit thy childhood, my friend, and wake up!

If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot.

My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

I go through life like a karate kid.

There are two things children should get from their parents: roots and wings.

For all my love little monsters I am your mom you are my child in my hand i protect you like my eyes but don’t worry I’ll catch you if you fall.

European children starved and watched their parents scheme and die. Here we grew up with toy whips. Early warning against our future leaders, the war babies.