Childhood

And in a chair well-known
My mother sat, and did not tire
With reading all alone.
If I should make the slightest sound
To show that I'm awake,
She'd rise, and lap the blankets round,
My pillow softly shake;
Kiss me, and turn my face to see
The shadows on the wall,
And then sing Rousseau's Dream to me,
Till fast asleep I fall.
~ William Allingham, from Flower Pieces and other poems (1888). Half-waking

Among the old folk
They laugh at our play.
And soon they all say
Such such were the joys.
When we all girls & boys,
In our youth time were seen,
On the echoing green.
~ William Blake, from Songs of Innocence (1789). The Ecchoing Green

I was toilet trained at gunpoint.
~ Billy Braver

I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.
~ "Johnny" William Carson

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me, I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.
~ Billy Collins, The Art of Drowning (1995). On Turning Ten

But still, I kept thinking, if I'm still troubled by this, if I'm still carrying it around like a big rucksack full of bricks and my father's dead, I need someone to tell me how to get rid of this great weight. . . . The most awful thing was that it was kind of pleasant physically, you know. That's why nobody tells.
~ Billy Connolly, Quoted in Ananova Ltd (23 September 2001). I was sexually abused as a child, says Billy Connolly

As I have discovered by examining my past, I started out as a child. Coincidentally, so did my brother. My mother did not put all her eggs in one basket, so to speak: she gave me a younger brother named Russell, who taught me what was meant by "survival of the fittest."
~ Bill Cosby, Putnam Publishing Group (1991). Childhood

I'm not sure if my parents had me because they loved me, or because they wanted someone to watch their other children.
~ Bill Cosby, The Oprah Show (17 October 2001).

My father established our relationship when I was seven years old. He looked at me and said, "You know, I brought you in this world, and I can take you out. And it don't make no difference to me, I'll make another one look just like you."
~ Bill Cosby, from Bill Cosby: Himself (1983 film, at the Hamilton Place Theatre in Hamilton, Ontario).

My mother said to me: "When your father gets home, he's going to shoot you in the face with a bazooka! And I'm not going to stop him this time! He's always wanted to kill you! When you were born, he said, "Kill it!"
~ Bill Cosby, from Bill Cosby: Himself (1983 film, at the Hamilton Place Theatre in Hamilton, Ontario).

The essence of childhood, of course, is play, which my friends and I did endlessly on streets that we reluctantly shared with traffic.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986).

Even as a child back in Indiana, whenever I took a Butterbelly off the hook, I used to ask myself, "Does this fish think?" I would even ask others, "Do you suppose this Butterbelly can think?" All I would get in reply was a look. At the age of 18, I left the state.
~ Will (William Jacob) Cuppy, How to Become Extinct (1941).

A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, What's Bred in the Bone (1985).

What are we going to do about Billy? That was the phrase that haunted me those first ten years. I pretended not to care, but secretly I was petrified. Everyone and everything was passing me by. I had no real friends, no single person who shared an equal interest in all games. I seemed busy, busy, busy, but I suppose, if pressed, I might have admitted that, for all my frenzy, I was very much alone.
~ William Goldman, The Princess Bride (1973). Introduction

Raised in the woods so he knew every tree, killed a bear when he was only three.
~ Bill Hayes

I never got along with my dad. Kids used to come up to me and say, "My dad can beat up your dad." I'd say, "Yeah? When?"
~ Bill Hicks

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.
~ Billie Holiday

Nobody became an actor because he had a good childhood.
~ William H. Macy

The mysteries that lie in childhood are continually reinvented as we go through life remembering them.
~ William Matthews

A person's maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

There was at all events one advantage in the choice of this day to my birth; my birthday throughout the whole of my childhood was a day of public rejoicing.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (1888).

The weight of a problem is the significance it has for the person who carries it; and the problems of infancy and childhood may be of intolerable weight if, to the one on whom they rest, they represent a threat to personal worth.
~ Bonaro Wilkinson Overstreet, Understanding Fear in Ourselves and Others (1951).

Even when I was little, I was big.
~ William ("The Refrigerator") Perry, Sports Illustrated magazine (4 November 1985). Monster Of The Midway

I can remember, at the age of five, being told that childhood was the happiest period of life (a blank lie, in those days). I wept inconsolably, wished I were dead, and wondered how I should endure the boredom of the years to come.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, On Education, Especially in Early Childhood (1926).

'Tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Look at him there in his stovepipe hat,
His high-top shoes, and his handsome collar;
Only my Daddy could look like that.
And I love my Daddy like he loves his Dollar.
~ William Jay Smith, Army Brat: A Memoir (1980). American Primitive

There is nothing in the world of art like the songs mother used to sing.
~ William A. "Billy" Sunday

People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Whenever I hear about people trying to rediscover the "child within," I want to scream.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Childhood is frequently a solemn business for those inside it.
~ George F. Will

I was an only child. I did have kind of like a lonely existence. The idea of being a character who is kind of isolated, I can relate to that.
~ Robin Williams, Reuters (16 January 2002). Robin Williams Shows Lonesome Side at Sundance

Walk in the rain, jump in mud puddles, collect rocks, rainbows and roses, smell flowers, blow bubbles, stop along the way, build sandcastles, say hello to everyone, go barefoot, go on adventures, act silly, fly kites, have a merry heart, talk with animals, sing in the shower, read childrens' books, take bubble baths, get new sneakers, hold hands and hug and kiss, dance, laugh and cry for the health of it, wonder and wander around, feel happy and precious and innocent, feel scared, feel sad, feel mad, give up worry and guilt and shame, say yes, say no, say the magic words, ask lots of questions, ride bicycles, draw and paint, see things differently, fall down and get up again, look at the sky, watch the sun rise and sun set, watch clouds and name their shapes, watch the moon and stars come out, trust the universe, stay up late, climb trees, daydream, do nothing and do it very well, learn new stuff, be excited about everything, be a clown, enjoy having a body, listen to music, find out how things work, make up new rules, tell stories, save the world, make friends with the other kids on the block, and do anything else that brings more happiness, celebration, health, love, joy, creativity, pleasure, abundance, grace, self-esteem, courage, balance, spontaneity, passion, beauty, peace, relaxation, communication and life energy to . . . all living beings on this planet.
~ Bruce Williamson, It's Never Too Late To Have A Happy Childhood (1987)

Most children have a bug period, and I never grew out of mine.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Naturalist (1994).

But trailing clouds of glory do we come,
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
~ William Wordsworth, Heaven Lies About Us

Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.
~ William Wordsworth, To a Butterfly, Part II, I've Watched You Now a Full Half-hour

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems in Two Volumes (1807). Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

The things that have been told us in our childhood
Are not so fragile.
~ William Butler Yeats, The Hour-Glass (1912 version).