Walker Percy Quotes

The child lives in a world which he unhesitatingly believes accessible to all around him.

But we talk about issues, we talk about people, we talk about personalities. George is a very good reader of people, and he's very perceptive about people, and you know, that's fine.

A 10-year-old knows a lot. If you think she or he isn't noticing the world around them, you're missing a lot.

Mr. Thornton felt that in this influx no one was speaking to Margaret, and was restless under this apparent neglect. But he never went near her himself; he did not look at her. Only, he knew what she was doing — or not doing — better than anyone else in the room. Margaret was so unconscious of herself, and so much amused by watching other people, that she never thought whether she was left unnoticed or not.

When you're a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to.

It is only grown-ups who want children to be children; children themselves always want to be real people.

People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children.

My radar, after all these years of sanity, is still off when it comes to what people do or don't mean.

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

It's all background experience and listening and exposure. That's why it's so important for people today and during any time to expose your children to lots of different kinds of things.

Working with children is very different than the way in which I work with adults. I never tell the children the actual truth of the thing that I want them to act. Although children are really into play and play acting, and this is a major part of their existence, they never actually find the playing or acting of adults credible.

What will a child learn sooner than a song?

The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong. Our attitude towards our equals in age consists in a servile solemnity, overlying a considerable degree of indifference or disdain. Our attitude towards children consists in a condescending indulgence, overlying an unfathomable respect.

I think my thing is that I try and pick up on things that other people have maybe not picked up on.

I don't view myself as a particularly intelligent people, but I do have one ability that I've demonstrated over and over again, that's helped me see things that other people for whatever reason have not seen. That's that most people see what they expect to see, what they want to see, what conventional wisdom tells them to see. I guess it could be stated that most people only hear the music, not the lyrics of human events.

But wise is the man who disdains no character, but with searching glance explores him to the root and cause of all.

An adult who does not understand that a child needs to use his hands and does not recognize this as the first manifestation of an instinct for work can be an obstacle to the child's development

Children are forced to live very rapidly in order to live at all. They are given only a few years in which to learn hundreds of thousands of things about life and the planet and themselves.

There is a real world, beyond the glass, for children who look, for those whose parents encourage them to truly see.

Wise men read very sharply all of your private history in your look and gait and behavior.

A child sees everything, looks straight at it, examines it, without any preconceived idea.

Music enhances the education of our children by helping them to make connections and broadening the depth with which they think and feel. If we are to hope for a society of culturally literate people, music must be a vital part of our children's education.

Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!

Children are given Mozart because of the small quantity of the notes; grown-ups avoid Mozart because of the great quality of the notes.