Clarence Day Quotes

Already, though, she understood the difference between being a child and being an adult. The difference is when someone says he can keep the bad things away, a child believes him.

I thought the whole world was like Lorain.

Most kids are smarter than most grown-ups. Kids see the world in black and white... They look through all the garbage and see a world run by fools and dullards and lazy people. And there's nothing they can do about it because they have no power.

I'm not as hopeful as I was when I was young.

Cynicism stems from disappointment. Cynical and faithless people were not always like that. They were filled with possibilities and hope as kids. But they tried and perhaps failed.

Cynicism is full of naive disappointments.

Remember, beneath every cynic there lies a romantic, and probably an injured one.

I knew I was coming home, I thought they would consider acquittal, I was disappointed that they didn't.

Credulity is the man’s weakness, but the child’s strength.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

For a long time, I was very naive and very trusting. I Just didn't think anyone would want to do anything to harm me, but I learned through trial and error that that's not the case.

It's become hard for me to trust people and though I'm the type to go, 'everybody is born good,' you come to question that.

Young children have no sense of wonder. They bewilder well, but few things surprise them. All of it is new to young children, after all, and equally gratuitous.

September had never been betrayed before. She did not even know what to call the feeling in her chest, so bitter and sour. Poor child. There is always a first time, and it is never the last time.

I just think love is stupid.

Love is a naked child: do you think he has pockets for money?

I used to take everything at face value. Because, when I say something, I mean it... so I used to feel that everybody else meant what they said. But of course that wasn't true. And life isn't that sweet and simple.

So far as I have myself observed, the distinctive character of a child is to live always in the tangible present.

Humanity, you never had it from the beginning." That was my motto.

If a person continues to see giants, it means he is still looking at the world through the eyes of a child.

Children understand intuitively that the world they have been born into is not a blessed world.

And yes, Holden would keep those kids from falling off the cliff, but WHO WOULDN'T? Does she think I would just fold my arms or give them a pat on the back before they sailed headfirst to the ground? We are all catchers, and it's sad that she doesn't see it. Instead she sees the PHONINESS, she deplores the world even after I point out that I am in it.

I did not know that children think the hard questions they ask are easy and thus expect easy answers to them, and that they are disappointed when they get cautious, complex answers.