Darell Hammond Quotes

Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.

I had a wild imagination as a kid - wild! - and I was outside all the time, swinging around in trees by myself.

When you're a little kid, you are small, your life is small - and you're terrifically aware of that. But when you read, you can ride Arabian horses across the desert, you can be a dogsledder.

Ultimately, so much Dr. Seuss is about empowerment. He invites us to disappear into our imagination and then blows the doors off what that can mean.

If you want your children to bring original ideas into the world, you need to let them pursue their passions, not yours.

I was brought up with an incredible amount of freedom and creativity.

When you've managed to stumble directly into the heart of the unknown - either through the misdirection of others, or better yet, through your own creative ineptitude - there is no one there to hold your hand or tell you what to do. In those bad lost moments, in the times when are advised not to panic, we own the unknown, and the world belongs to us. The child within has full reign. Few of us are ever so free

You see a child play, and it is so close to seeing an artist paint, for in play a child says things without uttering a word. You can see how he solves his problems. You can also see what's wrong. Young children, especially, have enormous creativity, and whatever's in them rises to the surface in free play.

Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish plays.

I discovered that in a story I could safely dream any dream, hope any hope, go anywhere I pleased any time I pleased, fight any foe, win or lose, live or die. My stories created a safe experimental learning place.

Every western I did and will do; I will do it for the never ending young kid inside of me.

I've always been inspired by small details that make me wander. My mother would ask me, 'What are you looking at so intensely?' I would answer, 'Everything and nothing.' She really supported my wanderings, called me Marco Polo.

A child's greatest achievements are possible in play, achievements that tomorrow will become her basic level of real action.

From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings.

In limits, there is freedom. Creativity thrives within structure. Creating safe havens where our children are allowed to dream, play, make a mess and, yes, clean it up, we teach them respect for themselves and others.

When you sit at your desk, if you're lucky, there's a moment when you feel empowered to be someone or something else, to leap into another skin.

The kids are old enough now - I just want to let them be kids. I don't want to comment on them too much. They're at an age where I just want to let them be kids.

I had absolute freedom to create things on my own and in silence. No rush, the artificial rush by media. Certainly no rush to grow up. We had plenty of boyhood, plenty of girlhood.

In play, a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play, it is as though he were a head taller than himself.

I was free when I was 12 because I got my first skateboard. I've been free ever since.

As a child, I was always playing some generic child.

They gave us the freedom just to play and have fun.

Fuel your kids' dreams. Sometimes, that means letting them stay up past their bedtimes.

I think it's important to give young people the freedom to follow their ideas and pursue their interests.

Children have such vibrant minds. They need to play. They need to be creative. They need to imagine. It's so important for their sense of self discovery. And it helps them learn problem-solving.