When I was five – it’s not even bad – I stole a sweet from the sweet shop.

I remember as a little girl going down to the beet fields in the Dakotas and in Nebraska and Wyoming as migrant workers when I was very, very small, like, I was, like, 5 years old, I believe. And I remember going out there, you know, traveling to these states and living in these little tarpaper shacks that they had in Wyoming.

I still consider myself a little, fat kid from Hawaii.

Not many people know this about me, but I’m a natural blonde. My hair went from light blonde naturally to a darker kind of blonde. My mother dyed my hair dark when I was a child, as I loved the look then. So I’m basically a natural blonde.

I had a rat-tail when I was younger. I had this nice Bobby Brown fade, with a rat-tail that was long enough to wrap around my face. I used to chew on the end and bite it.

When I was born, that was the music my mother was listening to. Michael Jackson is a third parent to me.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands. I had posters on my wall. I had Beatles records.

I’ve been thinking of humorous things since I was… I can’t remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.

Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

When I was at school, I used to stay on a balcony singing and people would stand around listening.

I got interested in reading very early, because a story was read to me, by Hans Christian Andersen, which was ‚The Little Mermaid,‘ and I don’t know if you remember ‚The Little Mermaid,‘ but it’s dreadfully sad. The little mermaid falls in love with this prince, but she cannot marry him because she is a mermaid.

As a child, I was an active Christian. I used to love the school choir and remember the carol service as always such an emotional thing.

I have never sat down and studied the Bible, never consciously echoed its language, and am, in reality, as ignorant of it as most brought-up Christians. All of the Bible that I use in my work is remembered from childhood and is the common property of all who were brought up in English-speaking communities.

As a boy, because I was born and raised in Ohio, about 60 miles north of Dayton, the legends of the Wrights have been in my memories as long as I can remember.

The first stories I wrote when I was 12 were about Mars and landing on Mars.

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.

I loved cowboy movies when I was a kid. When I was five years old, I was already wearing a cowboy hat and suit. When I grew up, I knew John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Kirk Douglas and so on.

I would like to go back to Wales. I’m obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.

I’ve always written. There’s a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother’s papers were destroyed. I’d written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then.

You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the president. I’m innocent. You’ve got to believe I’m innocent. If you don’t, take my job.

I remember when my mother, Shyamala Harris, bought our first home. I was thirteen. She was so proud, and my sister and I were so excited. Millions of Americans know that feeling of walking through the front door of their own home for the first time – the feeling of reaching for opportunity and finding it.

I know that a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania is about the most random place for a country singer to come from, but I had an awesome childhood.

At the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano.

I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

Most of my young years were spent under the boots of the military.

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.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

You have to steal a lot. You have to have a criminal mentality to be a film director.

I have dual citizenship; it just so happens I live in America. I would like to go back to Wales. I’m obsessed with my childhood, and at least three times a week dream I am back there.

I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn’t waste their lives because I didn’t have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.

I’ve always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little.

What I remember as a child is that other kids didn’t care about suffering. I always did.

When I was little, I used to adore gold. It was something special.

When I was a kid, there were no credit cards. Instead, retailers offered layaway plans. My mom would go to a store, such as a furniture outlet, choose the sofa she wanted, and put it on layaway. That meant she put a little money down to hold the sofa, and every payday she’d pay a little toward the purchase.

Writers are always writing about infidelity. It’s so dramatic. The wickedness of it, the secrecy, the complications, the finding that you thought you were one person but you’re also this other person. The innocent life and the guilty life. My God, it’s just full of stuff for a writer. I doubt it will ever go out of fashion.

‚Doo-wop‘ is a very special word for me. Because I grew up listening to my dad who, as a Fifties rock & roll head, loved doo-wop music.

I used to live on one candy bar a day – it cost a nickel. I always remember the candy bar was called Payday. That was my payday. And that candy bar tasted so good, at night I would take one bite, and it was so beautiful.

I am proud to have been born in Iowa. Through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, it was a place of adventure and daily discoveries – the wonder of the growing crops, the excitements of the harvest, the journeys to the woods for nuts and hunting, the joys of snowy winters, the comfort of the family fireside, of good food and tender care.

Why would anyone steal a shopping cart? It’s like stealing a two-year-old.

When I was ten, I won the horseshoe-throwing contest at summer camp. I was also the Wiffle ball champion in my town.

As a kid, even I knew everything about my favourite cricketers. I used to know everything possible. Now I see kids knowing about me. It feels good.

My grandmother used to embarrass me more, when she would pick me up from school wearing a big fuzzy hat. I didn’t like that.

Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.

I got my love of animals from the Dr. Doolittle books and my love of Africa from the Tarzan novels. I remember my mum taking me to the first Tarzan film, which starred Johnny Weissmuller, and bursting into tears. It wasn’t what I had imagined at all.

I always wanted to do what my brothers were doing. I always wanted to play the games they played and play rough and wear pants and go outside.

My first job was singing on the Cas Walker radio show in Knoxville, Tennessee. I was about 10 years old, and I thought it was big time.

Everybody is idealistic when you’re a kid.

I have loved to cook since I was a child in my mother’s kitchen. If I don’t have time to cook, I’ll just read a cookbook.

Childhood was very nice. The only thing wrong was that I was so introverted, everything became a big deal… ‚Oh, no, here comes the bus. Where am I gonna sit on the bus?‘

I look at other people’s lives, and some people feel like they’re too old to play with toys. But I still go through the toy section at the store, ‚cause there were toys that I wanted when I was little that I couldn’t have. So I still get them.

I was born in the Ottawa General Hospital right after the Gray Cup Football Game in 1939. Six months later, I was backpacked into the Quebec bush. I grew up in and out of the bush, in and out of Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie and Toronto.

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you’re supposed to do.

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn’t exist except as a part of everything.

An honest man is always a child.

The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it.

My father gave me some advice when I was very young – whatever someone tells you in the future, don’t forget Pele is the best.

Until I was a teenager, I used red pokeberries for lipstick and a burnt matchstick for eyeliner. I used honeysuckle for perfume.

Even when I was a kid, everything I had was the best.

I absolutely believed when I was young because the Tooth Fairy was always good to me. The Tooth Fairy generally left me a dollar or two dollars and, as a kid, that was a lot of money.

I was born in London 1947, after the war. A real wartime baby. I went to school in Brixton, and then I moved up to Yorkshire, which is in the north of England. I lived on the farms up there.