When you work with kids, especially, you want to be ready to turn the camera on at a moment’s notice.

If you’re not ready for everything, you’re not ready for anything.

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

Parents and teachers, learn to listen, then listen to learn from children.

When you have kids, you see life through different eyes. You feel love more deeply and are maybe a little more compassionate. It’s inevitable that that would make its way into your songwriting.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

Homework’s hard. Especially math. My kids joke with me. They tell me they have homework. I say, ‚Okay.‘ And then I sit down and they say, ‚It’s math.‘ ‚No! Not math! English, history, anything!‘

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

Part of our tradition as black women is that we are universalists. Black children, yellow children, red children, brown children, that is the black woman’s normal, day-to-day relationship. In my family alone, we are about four different colors.

It is not like I have gone crazy, I just don’t want to take any chances. You never know what could happen.

Part of me feels you can’t say you were truly in love if it didn’t last. If I end up getting married and having kids, that’s when I’ll know it’s real – because it lasted.

No matter what, I always make it home for Christmas. I love to go to my Tennessee Mountain Home and invite all of my nieces and nephews and their spouses and kids and do what we all like to do – eat, laugh, trade presents and just enjoy each other… and sometimes I even dress up like Santa Claus!

I can testify to what UNICEF means to children because I was among those who received food and medical relief right after World War II.

When I tell a child something the first time, I’m nice. The 15th time, I start to get aggravated.

Once you have six children, you’re committed.

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

I’ve said this time and again: My greatest concern coming into the White House was making sure my girls came out whole and normal, and decent and kind, just like I would expect them to if we were living on the South Side of Chicago. And it takes work to keep White House life normal for the kids.

Pictures must not be too picturesque.

I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.

Brad will tell you. He puts a movie on, I’m asleep in 10 minutes. I have no patience. But the kids love action movies with comedy, Jackie Chan and all that.

Children, I mean, think of your own childhood, how important the bedtime story was. How important these imaginary experiences were for you. They helped shape reality, and I think human beings wouldn’t be human without narrative fiction.

All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

I’m sorry, it’s true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We’re born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It’s been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much – if at all.

I consider the fact that thousands of children die each day from starvation and a lack of medicine a crisis for humanity and a problem we must collectively attempt to solve.

You bring children into the world. You love them with heart and soul.

Occasionally I’ve seen children become heavy-handed and insensitive when dealing with their aging parents, and it only caused resentment and hard feelings.

If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.

I’m just glad I was able to return to some of that innocence and beauty I had as a child when I started my own family, and my children brought me back some of that spirit.

Never have more children than you have car windows.

My friends ask me if I want more kids, and I always say yes, I want more; it’s the best thing you can have in your life.

I’m asking myself, ‚What do my girls, what do all our children deserve in their president? What kind of a president do we want for them?‘ Well, to start with, I think we want someone who is a unifying force in this country: someone who sees our differences not as a threat, but as a blessing.

Christmas morning, I’m going to open presents with my kids. I’m going to take pictures of them opening the presents. Then I’m going to come to the Staples Center and get ready to work.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

I read to my kid, but I can’t stand reading.

God looks after children, animals and idiots.

As a country, we can’t teach kids how to read and write when we got 18 years to do it. And that’s – that’s a disgrace.

I don’t believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

In the real world, children love me.

Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.

I will say this: one of the things that is a pain when you’re expecting children is how much advice unsolicited people give you when you’re not asking for it.

How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?

I had one incident where my daughter said that a girl asked if she was a brown person. I said, ‚We’re black. You have black people, white people, Chinese people, Hispanic people; we’re all brought up differently.‘

K to 12 is partly about babysitting the kids so the parents can do other things.

Crowded classrooms and half-day sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest national resource – the minds of our children.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

I always have a full-length mirror next to the camera when I’m doing publicity stills. That way, I know how I look.

We believed in our idea – a family park where parents and children could have fun- together.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

All things considered, there’s nobody better for children than parents.

Everywhere I go, the kids call me ‚the book lady.‘ The older I get, the more appreciative I seem to be of the ‚book lady‘ title. It makes me feel more like a legitimate person, not just a singer or an entertainer. But it makes me feel like I’ve done something good with my life and with my success.

There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.

From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.

To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.

My fans saw me get engaged, saw me make that woman my wife, me having kids, me divorcing, me talking about divorce before the divorce, me talking about my kids‘ reaction to that divorce.

Today, the news is scandals; that is news, but the many children who don’t have food – that’s not news. This is grave. We can’t rest easy while things are this way.

To the women and children, T stands for tender. To the bad guys and thugs, it stands for tough.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

I’ve worked with children all my life.

There’s love, and certainly children you care about more than yourself. But nevertheless, we’re alone in our heads.

I think the depth, what children can handle and what they’re interested in, is much deeper than I think what people assume. I think it’s why sometimes we make things too simple for them.