Alice in Wonderland

They say that every child learns from their mother – it’s ingrained from babyhood.

I am convinced that every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is sure: If they don’t make up their minds, someone will do it for them.

Cotton was a force of nature. There’s a poetry to it, hoeing and growing cotton.

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.

Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

Everything depends on upbringing.

With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents, are their most important role models.

Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

As a kid, I was making a building with blocks in our playroom. I didn’t have enough. So I asked my younger brother Robert if I could borrow some of his. He said, ‘Okay, but you have to give them back when you’re done.’ I used all of my blocks, then all of his blocks, and when I was done I had a great building, which I then glued together. Robert never did get those blocks back.

You don’t want to be with a boy who is too stupid to appreciate a smart young lady. There is no boy who is cute enough or interesting enough to stop you from getting your education.

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

I was shy when I was a kid, I was very shy, but now I think I’ve improved a lot. I can speak OK with the media and with the people. My English is still bad but I feel a little bit better now than before.

Growing up on the plantation there in Mississippi, I would work Monday through Saturday noon. I’d go to town on Saturday afternoons, sit on the street corner, and I’d sing and play.