Alan Ball Quotes

You treat a kid with respect and as an adult you talk to them as if they're smart people. But you don't throw at them the trappings of adulthood and you know, the darker stuff.

Above all, though, children are linked to adults by the simple fact that they are in process of turning into them. For this they may be forgiven much. Children are bound to be inferior to adults, or there is no incentive to grow up.

It's really difficult working with kids and with babies because they are not cooperative subjects: they are not socialized into the idea that they should cheerfully and cooperatively give you information. They're not like undergraduates, who you can bribe with beer money or course credit.

The truth is, no matter how trying they become, babies two and under don't have the ability to make moral choices, so they can't be bad. That category only exists in the adult mind.

Parents are supposed to instill a sense of right and wrong in their children and then keep up the due diligence necessary to make sure they don't veer off that path.

Besides being responsible for myself, I'm now responsible for someone else. And I have to set the right examples. I have to really be someone that I would want my child to look up to.

Six men can carry you or 12 men can judge you. You decide!

When people stop believing they are free agents, they stop seeing themselves as blameworthy for their actions.

A President could be impeached only for an error of the heart, and not of the head.

We are all responsible for our actions and our failures to act.

What is done cannot be effaced. We have to act upon a moral field prepared for us ...

I can only trust in God I have made no mistake. It is now for the country and the world to pass judgment on it.

What is done from necessity involves neither censure nor applause

A necessary act incurs no blame.

Those who are innocent today may be guilty tomorrow.

What I did, I did after very full deliberation, and under a heavy and solemn sense of responsibility. I can only trust in God that I have made no mistake.

Everyone in the process of punishing has the courage of someone else’s convictions to fall back on.

Even the most high-maintenance boss isn't going to sit and watch you the whole time, making sure you're paying attention to them, whereas with a child, it's like, 'Wait, what? You're not watching me right now? Really? Then I'm going to go spill this milk.' Even bosses from hell don't behave like that!

When what we introduce into the children's world of ideas and feelings is in line with the direction of the developmental forces of a given stage of life, we strengthen the entire developing person in a way that remains a source of strength throughout that person's life.

I don't think I'm being forced to grow up too fast; I would rather people treat me like an adult.

Children are not children. They are just younger people.

My perspective is that, when you're a kid, if your audience is a group of children or teenagers, you do have some level of social responsibility. I feel that.

I try and treat my children from the age of ten months as if they were totally grown up, which I think is the only way to treat children.

I'm more mature. I respect more the game as I should.

Teaching kids to respect rules is key.