babies Quotes

“She touched the healthy folds of skin around the baby’s neck, wrists, and thighs, the dark lines crying for life made in his forehead, and thought how people start with wrinkles and end with wrinkles, grow into their skin and then live to grow out of it again.”

“Having a baby is like having a tattoo on your face. You kind of want to be committed.”

But when all the mothers found out about the Herdmans they withdrew their babies.

“After the accident Ove bought a Saab 95 so he’d have space for Sonja’s wheelchair. That same year Rune bought a Volvo 245 to have space for a stroller. Three years later Sonja got a more modern wheelchair and Ove bought a hatchback, a Saab 900. Rune bought a Volvo 265 because Anita had started talking about having another child.”

“A mother held her new baby and very slowly rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.”

“The baby grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was two years old, and he ran all around the house. He pulled all the books off the shelves.”

“I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living, My baby you’ll be.”

“When infants aren’t held, they can become sick, even die. It’s universally accepted that children need love, but at what age are people supposed to stop needing it? We never do. We need love in order to live happily, as much as we need oxygen in order to live at all.”

“Unlike most babies, Stuart could walk as soon as he was born. When he was a week old he could climb lamps by shinnying up the cord.”

What a lovely day at the fair. Children lining up for pony rides . . . moms and dads in a pie-eating contest . . . babies chasing butterflies . . . babies heading for the trees . . . I SAY! Where are those babies GOING?

The art is bewitching, and the story is both funny and full of heart. A winner for the whole family, because yes, irl babies do crawl away (though generally not so far) and older siblings are heroes.

Only a small boy sees them leaving and follows as the babies chase butterflies in trees, frogs in a bog, even bats in a cave, ignoring pleas to come back. But not to worry, our hero saves the day, making sure that all the babies get home safely from their appealing adventures.

“Mrs. Murphy was summoned and gazed with delight upon him: sick infants were her reason for being, she thought there was nothing nicer and more pleasingly dreadful.”

“It’s true, I tell you. Your Mam will have to pray about this new one same as she prayed about you. ‘Please Lord,’ she’ll say, ‘have mercy, don’t make us live with this gruesome sight forever...‘”

“The first lasted only a moment and the other not even that, so I reckoned babies coming shouldn’t cause all that much trouble. They either came and stayed, or came and didn’t.”

″‘You mustn’t excite yourself, please Mistress. Remember your health. And the health of the innocent babe you carry.’ ‘Innocent babe,’ Ursula muttered. ‘A woman like that is more apt to be carrying a demon.‘”

“Once there were three baby owls: Sarah and Percy and Bill. They lived in a hole in the trunk of a tree with their Owl Mother.”

“The baby owls thought (all owls think a lot)- ‘I think she’s gone hunting,’ said Sarah. ‘To get us our food!’ said Percy. ‘I want my mummy! said Bill”

“The baby owls came out of their house and they sat on the tree and waited.”

“And the baby owls closed their eyes and wished their Owl Mother would come. AND SHE CAME.”

“Sarah couldn’t stand up straight any longer. She was too weak. The sun burned her faced. The babe cried and cried.”

“Double singing where they go_Eee aye eee aye eee aye oh!”

“There are two things in life you never regret—a baby and a swim.”

″‘What was you doing in that box, baby?’ he says. But the baby only keeps on crying.”

“He gives a plate of beans and a cup of tea to the baby. The baby eats the beans, throws the cup of tea on the floor and starts to laugh.”

″‘Well blow me down,’ says Burglar Betty. ‘That baby’s mine!‘”

“Sometimes Old Tom went for a little walk to the mailbox. But Angela though is best that he stay inside. ‘You mustn’t frighten the neighbors.’ she would say. When babies come to visit... Old Tom loved to play.”

“The room was misery and chaos: small babies wailing, parents huddling their bodies round their children to keep them warm enough to breathe. Will rubbed his chill hands together, and tried to feel his feet and his face through the numbness of cold. The room was becoming colder and colder, and from the freezing world outside there was no sound even of the wind. ”

“Rats! They fought the dogs and killed the cats, and bit the babies in the cradles, and ate the cheese out of the vats, and licked the soup from the cooks’ own ladles.”

“That’s quite absurd! You have merely to go to bed and blow out the candle. It is very difficult sometimes to keep awake, especially at church, but there is no difficulty at all about sleeping. Why, even babies know how to do that, and they are not very clever.”

“I’m feeling real bad for her all of a sudden. “If he is mine, you won’t be doing this alone no more, a’ight? I’ll come over and help as much as I can.”

“One fine spring morning there were six baby Plumpsters in the nest. Mr. Plumpster was delighted, and he invited his friends round to celebrate.”

“Maria was not the kind of person who bore malice for injuries, and she was certainly not the kind of kidnapper who habitually stole babies from their heartbroken mothers, for the mere cynical pleasure of hearing them scream.”

“At birth Rosa was white and smooth, without a wrinkle, like a porcelain doll, with green hair and yellow eyes—the most beautiful creature to be born on earth since the days of original sin, as the midwife put it, making the sign of the cross.”

“Look at the baby. Born to his mother, he learns how to eat from her, how to walk, talk, hunt, run. He does not invent new ways. He just continues with the old. This is how we all come to the world, James. Weak and needy, desperate to learn how to be a person...”