The innocence of childhood is like the innocence of a lot of animals.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

‚Lives‘ is one of those books I should really have written when I was younger. It is the classic childhood, adolescence, breakthrough-into-maturity book. Every beginning writer has that material – and after that, you’re not sure what you can do.

Man is the only animal capable of reasoning, though many others possess the faculty of memory and instruction in common with him.

To this day, some of my closest friends say, ‚Gaga, you know, everything’s great. You’re a singer; your dreams have come true.‘ But, still, when certain things are said to you over and over again as you’re growing up, it stays with you and you wonder if they’re true.

I used to live with my grandmother. I used to wonder why the other kids in school went home with their mothers and fathers. I wanted to be the guy that got married. I wanted to be the guy with the children and the white picket fence. I never had that.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, ‚I want to get out and become like him‘. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

I’ve always been fascinated with the stealing of innocence. It’s the most heinous crime, and certainly a capital crime if there ever was one.

I’ve always felt heroic about my life… As a child, I remember little girls in the playground moaning about how boys could do more than they could. I didn’t think that was the case at all. My parents didn’t treat me as a girl.

As a British driver, you get compared to Lewis and I get that. But when he came to McLaren, they were doing well and had a championship-winning car. I’m in a very different situation so I don’t compare myself to his stats.

Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss.

When I was a child, there’s one thing I said: ‚I never want to be alone.‘ That’s what I would say. I don’t want to be alone.

When I was 8 years old, it mattered what my favorite singer said and wore and expressed opinions about.

As a kid, I got three meals a day. Oatmeal, miss-a-meal and no meal.

I grew up in a funny way.

People say maybe we have a soul and chimpanzees don’t. I feel that it’s quite possible that if we have souls, chimpanzees have souls as well.

Religions in general have to rediscover their roots. In Hinduism and the Koran, animals are described as equals. If you walk into a cathedral and look at the decorations of early Christianity, there are vines, animals, creatures and birds thriving all over the stonework.

I never admire another’s fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own.

I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don’t like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.

I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t an extrovert. If anything, I was an introverted kid and a very average pupil at school. I was very quiet.

Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man’s, I mean.

I have found far greater enthusiasm for science in America than here in Britain. There is more enthusiasm for everything in America.

There have only been about a half dozen genuinely important events in the four-billion-year saga of life on Earth: single-celled life, multicelled life, differentiation into plants and animals, movement of animals from water to land, and the advent of mammals and consciousness.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

I was a smart kid, but I hated school.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

I had the most magical childhood, running free and going anywhere I wanted to in my head.

A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

But ever since I was a kid, I was always the winner.

That great Cathedral space which was childhood.

Even though the risks of death are higher driving than flying, many people would rather drive simply because they feel they have more control driving. The facts are that only a few hundred people die a year flying, and 44,000 are killed a year driving.

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.

Unlike many of its European neighbors, Britain shares many of America’s financial traits.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

When I was a young kid, I did not even dream about playing for my country. It was such a farfetched thing to play for India.

I had a really good childhood up until I was nine, then a classic case of divorce really affected me.

Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock.

It is all fiction, only autobiographical in the sense it is about a small town. None of the incidents in the book ever happened to me as a child. I didn’t have an eventful childhood.

For me, already being part of a single parent household and knowing it was just me and my mom, you’d would wake up times and hope that the next day you’d be able to be alongside your mother because she was out trying to make sure that I was taken care of. But all I cared about was her being home.

My mother did not like children.

I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.

My father… removed from Kentucky to… Indiana, in my eighth year… It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up… Of course when I came of age, I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher… but that was all.

Just as I wanted to outdo everyone when I played, I had to outdo everyone when we were out on the town.

We believe that according the name ‚investors‘ to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a ‚romantic.‘

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.

Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.

I hated school. Even to this day, when I see a school bus it’s just depressing to me. The poor little kids.

My mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God – I thank God every time I think of it – I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult.

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

We’re one of the only animals in the world that don’t really think of ourselves as animals, but we are animals, and we must respect our fellow animals.

I didn’t know any gay people in my childhood.

Life is the childhood of our immortality.

From childhood on, I did sit in the courtroom watching my father argue cases and talk to juries.

I started writing as a child. But I didn’t think of myself actually writing until I was in college. And I had gone to Africa as a sophomore or something – no, maybe junior – and wrote a book of poems. And that was my beginning. I published that book.

The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.

True Scouts are the best friends of animals, for from living in the woods and wilds, and practising observation and tracking, they get to know more than other people about the ways and habits of birds and animals, and therefore they understand them and are more in sympathy with them.

When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn’t know it had a name.

When I was little… I didn’t relate to princesses. I saw Maleficent, and I just thought she was so – she was so elegant.

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.