Donna Tartt Quotes

For me it is important that children be children. My parents felt exactly the same about me.

I think because I'm not a parent, my most immediate connection to childhood is my memory of my own childhood.

Hold back the tide. Keep your kids innocent as long as possible.

Childhood may have periods of great happiness, but it also has times that must simply be endured. Childhood at its best is a form of slavery tempered by affection.

The weakness of little children's limbs is innocent, not their souls.

I prefer to write books for children instead of reading them. But I do strongly believe in childhood and in respecting childhood innocence. I don't like books for children that deal with adult themes.

In fact, my son learned his first swear word from E.T. at age five. The way I look at it, E.T. stole a bit of my son's childhood.

Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are formed, his mind developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow, his name is today.

Life isn't so complicated for children. They have more time to think about the really important things. That's why I occasionally moralise in my children's books in a way I wouldn't dare when writing for adults.

I think when you're 10 years old, it's too much to see something with the threat of death in every episode. Kids are better left naive about certain things.

Childhood is a fundamental part of all human lives, parents or not, since that's how we all start out. And yet babies and young children are so mysterious and puzzling and even paradoxical.

My mom told me I never had enough Tonka toys when I was growing up.

A lot of children grow up in poverty with flawed parents, but their inner world is still as inherently filled with wonder and innocence as children who are kept away from the city's underbelly.

Children are far more interesting to work with than grownups. They're incredibly honest. They'll tell you exactly what they think.

As a child, I was always playing some generic child.

You can never spend enough time with children.

Michael has a connection with children, just like Mickey Mouse does, and he brings happiness to them, and joy.

Fairy tales were important to me. Aren't they for any kid? My sister says I spent a good five years of my youth convinced I would grow up to be a princess.

I don't know, maybe I'm overly paranoid that they're going to be spoiled, but I want to keep them going as kids for as long as I can. I want to keep them innocent and free.

It's natural for a child to assume that his or her own childhood is unremarkable.

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

Kids are important.

A child should be a child for as long as possible.

I know I'm grown, but there's a part of me who will eternally be six years old.