Ken Bruen Quotes

I was a very un-literary child, which might reassure parents with kids who don't read.

Grown-ups didn't seem to realize that for me, as for most other schoolboys, it was easier to keep silent than to speak. I was a natural oyster.

Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses.

Maybe I didn't have the childhood people think you should have, but I still went through the ages; I was still a child.

I grew up in a house of no love or emotion - it kind of sticks with you.

Homeless people really upset me when I was little. A lot of kids have this reaction, but I would get really worried or sad or concerned or cry.

Part of what was in the ether all around me growing up, until I was between 19 and 20, was a terrible, debilitating stutter. It was part of what made me very reclusive as a kid.

I think I would have had less tumult in my life if I hadn't grown up in my particular house.

I overheard things in the Woolworths when I was a child, people saying, 'Oh, poor, little thing,' as if they had some understanding that I was being born biracial into a world that was still very difficult for interracial marriages and biracial children.

I was never taught how to raise a child, because I wasn't raised properly.

There were periods during my childhood when I stammered so badly I couldn't talk at all.

This is an old family secret, and I just found this out recently, and it almost broke my heart. My mother said to me, 'I had never told you this, but God, you were an ugly baby'.

There's only so much academic disruption that a young child can deal with before he just can't catch up.

Something like reading depends a lot on just having people around you who talk to you and read you books, more than sitting down and, say, doing a reading drill when you're 3 or 4 years old.

I had a lot of trouble speaking as a kid. I didn't really speak in coherent sentences until I was, like, 6 years old. There was a long time where everybody was very worried, because my sisters were so advanced for their age, and I would barely talk.

I've got a quiet voice. I think it's because as a child I didn't speak very much. I used to put my fingers in my ears to feel the silence, which was like a lovely trickling motion in my head.

There's been very little writing about speech impediments, even though it's this huge psychological barrier.

Divorce is, of course, difficult for a child. I didn't go through it as my parents stayed together, but I have a lot of friends who did.

I hate the idea of any kid missing out on the magic of reading.

When you act, you're being asked to pretend in a very rigid, controlled environment. It's very un-childlike. So a lot of times, when you put kids in that situation, you hope they have a better support system outside of what they're doing to bring them back to reality at the end of the day and to keep them well-rounded.

Most people who have grown up introverted in this very extroverted culture of ours have had painful experiences of feeling like they are out of step with what's expected of them. Parenting can pose unique challenges for introverted parents, who fear that their own painful experiences will be repeated in their children's lives.

I never saw a department store Santa as a kid. My mother was afraid to take me.

I think it's extremely important that children are exposed to reading.

I always was a weird child. My mother told me the story that, in kindergarten, I would come home and tell her about this weird kid in my class who drew only with black crayons and didn't speak to other kids. I talked about it so much that my mother brought it up with the teacher, who said, 'What? That's your son.'

Unfortunately, some parents simply don't love their children. Probably they don't even love themselves. That may be the heart of their problem. Having parents like this is a terrible burden for any child and can shadow him all through life. It can even destroy him.