Ruskin Bond Quotes

I remember, I remember The fir-trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky; It was a childish ignorance, But now 't is little joy To know I'm farther off from heaven Than when I was a boy.

Once you stop believing in Santa Claus, the whole world just goes downhill.

There's nothing I liked visually of the period I was a child. There was no dream in it, and nothing sparkled.

I can remember being eight, and I like writing about that age of innocence when children still have a sense of wonder.

I grew up as this very carefree, happy kid then things turned darker for me. Maybe it was because I saw that the world wasn't as happy a place as I had hoped it would be for me.

No generation has escaped it - one morning, your skill with the eight-track or the record player or the cotton gin suddenly ceases to impress. It's just one of those inevitable disappointments that come with growing up, like the realization that Santa doesn't exist or the way that music always takes a turn for the worse after you turn 30.

I was crawling out of the bedroom window with my older sister when I should have still been playing with dolls.

It occurred to me the thing that broke my heart the most was when I grew up and realized everything wasn't an adventure. I got to a certain age and realized I couldn't be Indiana Jones.

For me, the ages between 9 and 12 were great because it was before you wore any masks, and you had some autonomy in the world. You had some freedom, and you felt you had unlimited ambition. It's when you thought, 'I'm going to write plays. I'm going to be president. I'm going to do this; I'm going to do that.' And then it all falls apart.

The first movie that ever scared me, I feel like it wasn't a scary movie. I feel like it was 'Dennis the Menace' or something.

Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.

This was not a good idea coming home for Christmas. I'm too old. Years ago, coming back from schools or trips, I always expected some sort of new perspective or fresh insight about the family on returning. That doesn't happen anymore-the days of revelation about my parents, at least, are over... its time to move on. I think we'd all appreciate that.

No matter how much kids beg to be treated like adults, nobody likes to let go of their childhood. You wish for it and dream of it and the second you have it, you wonder what you've done. You wonder what it is you've become.

The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.

Childhood is less clear to me than to many people: when it ended I turned my face away from it for no reason that I know about, certainly without the usual reason of unhappy memories. For many years that worried me, but then I discovered that the tales of former children are seldom to be trusted. Some people supply too many past victories or pleasures with which to comfort themselves, and other people cling to pains, real and imagined, to excuse what they have become.

Everything is so dreamy when you are young. After you grow up it kind of becomes -- just real.

He wondered whether growing up was learning that most stories turned out to be lies.

I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be - instead of the tawdry, lousy fouled-up mess it is.

But the years came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little dust in the box in which she had kept her toys.

I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them. Brian Fitzgerald, talking about his children.

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

Recollections of early childhood bear comparison to fairy tales, and ... youth remains an unknown country to whose bourn no traveler returns except as the agent of a foreign power.

I have a lot of stories about being a kid because it was the last time I was interesting.

You're sad-looking," she said. "My grandson used to be such a happy boy. He used to write me stories. I remember the first story he ever wrote me, 'Once upon a time, there was a boy.' And that became 'Once upon a time there was a boy who wanted to fly.' And they kept getting better and better over time. I never found out if the boy got to fly." I gave her a small smile. If only she knew the boy's wings had been clipped.