Louis MacNeice Quotes

My parents divorced when I was seven. Because divorce is messy, for good or ill, they sent me to boarding school.

I was sent to boarding school at the age of ten. I think Mummy was trying to protect me in her own way, trying to spare me living through the day-to-day reality of her illness.

Parents, you know, can be terrible.

It's a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.

When I was coming home from school as a youngster, and I saw my dad's car in the driveway, I would go to a friend's house. I connected my dad being there with fear.

The kids get cheated out of a lot of times with their dad. They were good about it.

From a child's point of view, there is rarely a great time for parents to separate, even if there has been a lot of commotion and fighting.

My brother and I were separated when I was a child; we went with different parents.

My mother and father split up when I was three and my brother was still in the womb.

I had a pretty rough childhood. I was raised for a few years by my single mom, until she married my stepdad a little later.

When I was seven my parents divorced. My father went to Dallas. My mom fled to the shelter of my grandparents in a strange central Ohio town of 22,000, Wooster. When it looked like I was growing up to be a wimp I was forced to live with my father, which I did not want to do.

When I was just four-and-a-half, my parents separated and both my parents remarried.

I had a tough childhood after my father died when I was five, and I had a very difficult stepfather. I want to give my children what I didn't have - a good role model.

I didn't want to hurt my parents' feelings about how hard certain things were in my 20s, how hard it was when my dad left my senior year before I went to college.

My mother didn't know what to do with me.

Certain stories, like my mom leaving when I was 15-years-old to go back to China because she didn't quite assimilate like we did, that was a moment that was very sad in my life.

I don't want to get too detailed and personal, but my parents got divorced when I was about nine. A lot of that had to do with my dad being on the road and that disconnect.

If I raised my hand to wipe the hair out of my children's eyes, they'd flinch and call their attorney.

My mother told me I said to her, at age three, 'I'm going to go to Italy and get my father in a tractor.' 'You've never seen quite so fierce a little boy as you were,' she told me. She tried to explain that I couldn't get my father in a tractor. Apparently I looked at her and narrowed my eyes and said, 'In that case, I'm going in a double-decker bus,' and stomped off. Which is kind of funny, but it's very sad, as well.

When I was a kid I got no respect. I told my mother, I'm gonna run away from home. She said, On your mark.

Our parents are our first oppressors.

Children always think they did something wrong when their parents disappear.

my parents ... had decided early on that all of the problems in my family had somehow to do with me. All roads led to Roseyville, a messy, chaotic town where, as parents, they were required to visit, but could never get out of quick enough or find a decent parking place.

When I was 12 years old, I was just horrible. My parents were ashamed to watch my matches. I would play on a court at the local club and they would watch from the balcony. They would scream, 'Be quiet' to me and I would scream back, 'Go and have a drink. Leave me alone.' Then we would drive home in a very quiet car. No one speaking to each other.