'Is this the wee bairn? Ach, what a noseful o' bogeys!' (WFM)
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... it's the job of grandmothers to be happy when grandchildren give them things. (WFM)
... there was probably no combination of vowels that could do justice to the cry Nanny Ogg made on seeing a young baby. It included sounds known only to cats. (CJ)
'You didn't want to be a warrior?'
'Never. It takes a woman nine months to make a new human. Why waste her effort?' (N) Few things are hidden from a quiet child with good eyesight. (WFM)
Magrat liked to think she was good with children, and worried that she wasn’t. She didn’t like them very much, and worried about this too. Nanny Ogg seemed to be effortlessly good with children by alternately and randomly giving them either a sweet or a thick ear, while Granny Weatherwax ignored them from most of the time and that seemed to work just as well. Whereas Magrat cared. It didn’t seem fair. (WA)
‘You could have helped.’
I’m helping by not helping.’ ‘You’re the one with experience of these creatures.’ ‘Children, Lobsang. They’re called children.’ (LU) … Nanny believed that a bit of thrilling and pointless terror was an essential ingredient of the magic of childhood. (WS)
‘Obviously we shouldn’t get married if only for the sake of the children.’ (M)
‘… children throw us all away sooner or later.’ (ER)
‘If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly,’ said Granny, fleeing into aphorisms, the last refuge of an adult under siege. (ER)
No one like a child who pays attention too hard, whose eyes follow your every move, and who listens very carefully to everything you say. It’s like talking to a great big bottomless ear. (BOS)
'Mrs. Tilly, I think you wrote a lovely well-spelled and grammatical letter to us suggesting that everyone under the age of eighteen should be flogged once a week to stop them being so noisy?’
‘Once a day, Mr de Worde,’ said Mrs. Tilly. ‘That’ll teach ‘em to go around being young!' (TT) He was vaguely aware that childhood was a tricky business, especially toward the end. There was all the business with pimples and bits of your body having a mind of their own. (SM)
It was a brave female dwarf who advertised the fact, in a society where the wearing of even a decent, floor-length, leather-and-chain-mail dress instead of leggings positioned you, on the moral map, on the far side of Tawnee and her hard-working co-workers at the Pink Pussy Cat Club. But introduce a gurgling kid into the room and you could spot them instantly, for all their fearsome clang and beards you could lose a rat in. (Th)
... is an established fact that, despite everything society can do, girls of seven are magnetically attracted to the colour pink. (MR)
Silver stars weren’t awarded frequently and gold stars happened less than once a fortnight, and were vied for accordingly. Right now Miss Susan selected a silver star. Pretty soon Vincent the Keen would have a galaxy of his very own. To give him his due he was quite uninterested in which kind of star he got. Quantity, that was what he liked. Miss Susan privately marked him down as Boy Most Likely to Be Killed One Day By His Wife. (TOT)
Honestly, thought Susan, once you learn the arts of defending the Stationery Cupboard, outwitting Jason and keeping the class pet alive until the end of term, you’ve mastered at least half of teaching. (TOT)
There was something pleasant about an empty classroom. Of course, as any teacher would point out, one nice thing was that there were no children in it ... (TOT)
'Algebra?’ said Madam Frout, perforce staring at her own bosom, which no one else had ever done. ‘But that’s far too difficult for seven-year-olds!’
‘Yes, but I didn’t tell them that and so far they haven’t found out,’ said Susan. (TOT) As far as she could see, children mostly argued, shouted, ran around very fast, laughed loudly, picked their noses, got
dirty and sulked. Any seen dancing and skipping and singing had probably been stung by a wasp. (WFM) It’s amazing what a child who is quiet and observant can learn, and this includes things people don’t think she is old enough to know. (WFM)
If children were weapons, Jason would have been banned by international treaty. Jason had doting parents and an attention span of minus several seconds, except when it came to inventive cruelty to small furry animals, when he could
be quite patient. Jason kicked, punched, bit and spat. His artwork even frightened the life out of Miss Smith, who could generally find something nice to say about any child. He was definitely a boy with special needs. In the view of the staffroom, these began with an exorcism. (TOT) Ponder had been that kind of child. He still had all the pieces for every game he’d ever been given. Ponder had been the kind of boy who carefully reads the label on every Hogswatch present before opening it, and notes down in a small book who it is from, and has all the thank-you letters written by teatime. His parents had been impressed even then, realizing they had given birth to a child who would achieve great things or, perhaps, be hunted down by a righteous citizenry by the time he was ten. (LC)
Somewhere almost out of hearing, children were at play. It was always a pleasant, lulling sound.
Always provided, of course, you couldn’t hear the actual words. (H) |
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The world has lost Sir Terry, and it's so much the poorer for that. Vale Sir Terry. Categories
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