"There must be nothing as enthralling as stories about one's children being clever."
-NANCY THAYER
"I discovered when I had a child of my own that I had become a biased observer of small children.  Instead of looking at them with affection but nonpartisan eyes, I saw each of them as older or younger, bigger or smaller, more or less graceful, intelligent, or skilled than my own child."
"-MARGARET MEAD
"It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows."
-ERMA BOMBECK
"Teen-agers live loudly."
-DELIA EPHRON
"Truth, which is important to a scholar, has got to be concrete.  And there nothing more concrete than dealing with babies, burps and bottles, frogs and mud."
-JEAN J. KIRKPATRICK
"Oh, and at least once a day say "no".   I know, you want your kids to have everything, but if kids don't hear "no" once in a while...they will have nothing."
-ERMA BOMBECK
"...It is still the biggest gamble in the world.  It is the glorious life force.  It's huge and scary--it's an act of infinite optimism."
-GILDA RADNER
"I begin to love this little creature, and to anticipate his birth as a fresh twist to a knot, which I do not wish to untie."
-MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
"Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third."
-MARGE PIERCY
"I stood in the hospital corridor the night after she was born.  Through a window I could see all the small, crying newborn infants and somewhere among them slept the one who was mine.  I stood there for hours filled with happiness until the night nurse sent me to bed."
-LIV ULLMAN
"Parents of young children should realize that few people, and maybe no one, will find their children as enchanting as they do."
-BARBARA WALTERS
"...Who is getting more pleasure from this rocking, the baby or me?"
-NANCY THAYER
"Teddy bears shouldn't sit in closets when there's a child around who will love them."
-JANET DAILEY
"A woman who can cope with the terrible twos can cope with anything."
-JUDITH CLABES
"I got more children than I can rightly take care of, but I ain't got more than I can love."
-OSSIE GUFFY
"There is no influence so powerful as that of a mother."
-SARAH JOSEPHA HALE
"Loving a child doesn't mean giving in to all his whims;  to love him is to bring one out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult."
-NADIA BOULANGER
"Once the children were in the house, the air became more vivid and heated;  every object in the house grew more alive."
-MARY GORDON
"Children are a house's enemy.  They don't mean to be-- They just can't help it.  It's their enthusiasm, their energy, their natural destructive tendencies."
-DELIA EPHRON
"Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky."
-FRAN LEIBOWITZ
"The real menace with dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old."
-JEAN KERR
"There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep."
-RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it."
-MARK TWAIN
"What feeling is so nice as a child's hand in yours?  So small, so soft and warm, like a kitten huddling in the shelter of your clasp."
-MARJORIE HOLMES
"Perhaps we have been misguided into taking too much responsibility from our children, leaving them too little room for discovery."
-HELEN HAYES
"Like so many things one did for children, it was absurd but pleasing, and the pleasure came from the anticipation of their pleasure."
-MARY GORDON
"To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons."
-MARILYN FRENCH
"The race of children possess magically sagacious powers!"
-GAIL GODWIN
"Through our children we...have a kind of spiritual reprieve
-EDITH E. HUNTER
"Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty."
-GEORGE ELIOT
"In the light of their limited knowledge children are usually absolutely logical."
-MARGOT FONTEYN
