No poet is ever completely lost. He has the secret of his childhood safe with him, like some secret cave in which he can kneel. And, when we read his poetry, we can join him there.

-Ackroyd, Peter
  Chatterton, ch.10.

Old age is second childhood.

-Aristophanes
Nubes ( The Clouds), l.1417.

  Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells And sights, before the dark of reason grows.

-Betjeman, SirJohn
  Summoned By Bells, ch.4.

But childhood prolonged cannot remain a fairy-land. It becomes a hell.

-Bogan, Louise
  On Katherine Mansfield.'Childhood's False Eden'.

We wove a web in childhood, A web of sunny air; We dug a spring in infancy Of water pure and fair; We sowed in youth a mustard seed, We cut an almond rod; We are now grown up to riper ageö Are they withered in the sod?

-Bronte«  , Charlotte
  'We Wove a Web in Childhood'.

Remember your own childhood. That complete certainty you had, looking at the grown-ups, that you would never be like that. It was a lonely feeling, but euphoric, too.

-Campion,Jane
  Interview with Sarah Gristwood in The Times Magazine, 'Jane Campion:  A Childhood',1  Jan.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod A place where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator God And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie The grass below, above, the vaulted sky.

-Clare,John
  'I  Am'.

Do you know anyone who wouldösecretly, sincerely, in his innermost selföreally prefer to return to childhood?

-Desai, Anita ne¤  e Mazumbar
  The Clear Light of Day, ch.1.

If I could only live at the pitch that is near madness When everything is as it was in my childhood Violent, vivid and of infinite possibility.

-Eberhart, Richard Ghormley
  'If I Could Only Live at the Pitch That Is Near Madness'.

and Ireally hopeno white person ever has causetowrite about me because they never understand Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy

-Giovanni,Nikki in full Yolande CorneliaGiovanni,Jr
  Black Judgement,'Nikki^Rosa'.

You lost yourability for doing things in childhood† It all beganwithyourinability toputonyoursocksand ended by your inability to live.

-Goncharov, Ivan Alexandrovich
  Oblomov, pt.4, ch.2 (translated by David Magarshak).

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

-Greene, (Henry) Graham
  The Power and the Glory, pt.1, ch.1.

From his childhood onward this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers by the score, and will be taught to believe himself as of a superior creation. A line will be drawn between him and the people whom he is to be called upon some day to reign over. In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour round the world, and probably rumours of a morganatic alliancewill follow, and the end of it all will bethattheCountry will be calledupontopay the bill.

-Hardie, (James) Keir
  Speech in the House of Commons, 28  Jun, opposing an Address of Congratulation to the Queen being passed in the House of Commons, on the birth of a son (the future Edward VIII) to the Duke and Duchess ofYork.

What we've doneinthis country inthepast fewdecades is socialize the cost of growing old and privatize the cost of childhood.

-Hewlett, Sylvia Ann
  In the Washington Post, 22 Feb.

I believe that the experience of childhood is irretrievable. All that remains, foranyof us, is a handful of brilliant frozen moments, already dangerously distorted by the wisdoms of maturity.

-Lively, Penelope (Margaret)
  Oleander,  Jacaranda, preface.

Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet isthemiserable Irish Catholic childhood.

-McCourt, Frank
  Angela's  Ashes, ch.1.

   In my childhood trees were green And there was plenty to be seen. Come back early or never come.

-MacNeice, (Frederick) Louis
Plant and Phantom,'Autobiography', l.1^3.

Is it not possible that the rage for confession, autobiography, especially for memories of earliest childhood, is explained by our persistent yet mysterious belief in a self which is continuous and permanent; which, untouched by all we acquire and all we shed, pushes a green spear through the dead leaves and throughthemould, thrusts a scaled bud through years of darkness until, one day, the light discovers it and shakes the flower free andöwe are aliveöwe are flowering for our moment upon the earth? This is the moment which after all, we live foröthe moment of direct feeling when we are most ourselves and least personal.

-Beauchamp
   Journal entry,  Apr.

For some time I watch the coming of the night† Above is the glistening galaxy of childhood, now hidden in the Western world by air pollution and the glare of artificial light; for my children's children, the power, peace and healing of the night will be obliterated.

-Matthiessen, Peter
  Of the night sky in Nepal. The Snow Leopard,'Northward, October18'.

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age The child isgrown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. Nobody that matters, that is.

-Millay, Edna St Vincent
  Wine From These Grapes,'Childhood is the Kingdom where Nobody dies'.