Erin O'Connor Quotes

For some men, life seems to be one long attempt to escape childhood and all the fears of childhood. That's what many of us are doing.

I paid for my name a lot when I was growing up because other kids teased me.

What interests me is what children go through while growing up.

High school is just horrible in general. So, I think it was a good time for me to have stopped acting. I got to be normal in high school.

I go to third grade, and I'm scared to death. I'm just 6 years old, and the kids are so much bigger than me.

I was bullied as a boy - lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.

In my first movie, That Night, with Juliette Lewis, I had a scene with two other girls where we applied a cream to our chests to make our breasts grow. I was 10.

In the case of 'Ocean at the End of the Lane,' it's a book about helplessness. It's a book about family, it's a book about being 7 in a world of people who are bigger than you, and more dangerous, and stepping into territory that you don't entirely understand.

It's true, I had an extremely delicious life, but that was my life at home, and perhaps because I was only a child, or for whatever reasons, I found the company of others, especially other boys, quite terrifying and upsetting.

I always thought it was a goat that kicked me over the fence. My mama told me the other day it was a cow. Now I'm sort of scared of both.

I vividly remember sixth grade. It's the year when kids turn mean, and it's definitely no longer okay to cry in public. So we force our hot tears back, and they burn our throats all the way down.

I think peas are really nasty. I liked them when I was younger, but I guess when you get older you have different taste buds.

The more people get advised to eat vegetables, the less it seems they wish to eat them. And it is quite a natural response. So I've said that the main way that we get to like food is through being exposed to them, but there's a second condition. We have to be exposed to them without feeling any sense of coercion.

My son, before he went to school, he'd eat pretty much everything. Then as soon as he went to school, he got some peer pressure, and other kids would say, 'Oh, you're gonna eat that. That's horrible. That's disgusting.'

Part of my problem is that I cannot dispel the myths that have somehow accumulated over the years. Somebody writes something, it's completely off the wall, but it gets filed and repeated until everyone believes it. For instance, I've read that I wear a football helmet in the car.

As a kid, I really, truly believed that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, something really bad was going to happen.

Bullying has been around forever, and so it became one of these issues that as an adult we look back on and say, 'Yeah, it's just one of those unfortunate parts of growing up.' You know you're not going to stop it, so it just became easier to call it one of those things that 'just happens.'

I was so gangly, even sneakers looked awkward. Everybody kind of goes through some phase, and it's hard if you're singled out for anything. But there was this one boy in particular who made fun of me, and - it's funny - then later, when we were 18 or 19, he wanted to go out with me.

My birthday is always around Thanksgiving, and I always had to have turkey on my birthday. My mom was always, 'Let's celebrate your birthday on Thanksgiving.' My other siblings got to have special dinners they liked. I resented turkey. For a long time, I hated turkey. I've kind of gotten over it.

In spite of being so absorbed in comics when I was in primary school, for whatever reason, I stopped reading them that much once I started junior high. I think it's probably because I got caught up in movies and TV.

I was a very anxious kid. I was bullied at primary school and responded by making myself as anonymous as possible at secondary school.

In 2010, my kids came home telling these ridiculous stories about me they heard from school. I realized my kids didn't know my story, and they were hearing it from the goofballs at school.

As a kid I wanted to run away from home every time I got a scolding for being naughty but I never did. Knowing now what happens to unprotected kids on the streets I'm glad I didn't.

For me, one of the big things I really worried about a lot was nuclear war growing up.

By the time I'm nine I know the world is a dangerous place. I've heard whispers about razorblades in apples, about Charlie Manson and his family. But no one is offering any clear information.