Dennis Banks Quotes

My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away, because that was exactly what was happening all around us.

My father used to beat me with his belt...while it was still on him.

My childhood ended in this horrible way. I lived in a country where I didn't trust anybody.

I punched my mother out once.

Through my mind, is just the horror of these people. I had been held by them, I knew how violent they were.

More than 90 percent of all the prisoners in our American prisons have been abused as children.

My father rebelled ferociously against his conservative upbringing where his father physically abused him.

My mother would beat me so bad, I wouldn't be able to sit down. And I would never snitch.

I was teased horribly as a child and beaten up a lot.

If we are to save our children then we must become people they will look up to. Children need heroes now more than ever because the poor children of this nation live with monsters every day. Monsters deprive them of heat in the winter, they don't fix their sinks and toilets, they let garbage pile up in their hallways, they kick them out of their homes, they beat them, shoot them, stab them-sometimes to death-they rape their bodies and their minds. Sometimes they lurk under the stairs. They scuttle around in the dark; you hear them in the walls gnawing, squeaking, occasionally biting a little finger.

He whipped her to make her scream and then he whipped her to make her hush.

My mother was the most wicked mother ever seen in life when it came to beating. Oh-la-la! Every time I would say, 'This is the end of me.' Oh, how she would beat me.

I was fighting men at age 10.

It's shocking that so many children still live in fear as a result of violence in the home, and don't know who to turn to for help and support. As a child survivor of domestic violence I can remember the fear and isolation. I'm delighted to support the Hideout, the new Women's Aid website for children and young people. I know it could have made a real difference to me and will provide great comfort and support to thousands of children.

My Papa's Waltz: The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.

He beat me like he beat the children. Cept he don't never hardly beat them. He say, Celie, git the belt. The children be outside the room peeking through the cracks. It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how come I know trees fear man.

My grandmother used to discipline me, I mean, beat my ass, and I deserved them, too.

Well, I did go to Irish dancing lessons as a kid, but I was slapped and never went again.

Where I'm from, they'll beat your head until it gets back down to normal size.

Abuse is the means in which violence retards love.

My first memory in the world is my gym teacher ripping my mother's necklace off her neck and throwing it out the window and her running downstairs to go after it. I have no memory before that. I was 4. My father had a lot of girlfriends and my mother had a lot of boyfriends.

My mind boggles at the amount of violence inflicted upon children in today's society.

I have terrible handwriting. I now say it's a learning disability... but a nun who was a very troubled woman hit me over the fingers with a ruler because my writing was so bad.

Rape, mutilation, abuse, and theft are the natural outcome of a world in which force rules, in which human beings are objects.

In high school, I got smacked and kicked around. Two bloody noses. It was horrible.