Poetry is one of the few nasty childhood habits I've managed to grow out of.

When I look back on my childhood I think of that short time in Beirut. I know that seeing the city collapse around me forced me to grasp something many people miss: the fragility of peace.

My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own fatherhood but it didn't because parenting can only be learned by people who have no children.

My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer but my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood because it was full of gladness and good humanity.

I had no idea that mothering my own child would be so healing to my own sadness from my childhood.

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected momentary and fleeting yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains.

From childhood I was passionately fond of music and wanted to be a musician. I have no recollection of any real desire ever to be anything else.

My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood musical roots buried in the darkest soil.

I had the standard movie geek childhood because for as long as I can remember all I wanted to do was make movies.

I spent much of my later childhood and adolescence very very involved and interested in art and particularly in animated movies.

My childhood was influenced by the roles my father played in his movies. Whether Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad in the 'Grapes of Wrath ' his characters communicated certain values which I try to carry with me to this day.

That was my childhood. I grew up with the monks studying Sanskrit and meditating for hours in the morning and hours in the evening and going once a day to beg for food.

Just this morning out of a large memory for songs and having been obsessed by them since childhood suddenly at the age of 84 I thought of a song I hadn't thought of in over 50 years. It came into my head unbidden.

One's age should be tranquil as childhood should be playful. Hard work at either extremity of life seems out of place. At midday the sun may burn and men labor under it but the morning and evening should be alike calm and cheerful.

I don't know what your childhood was like but we didn't have much money. We'd go to a movie on a Saturday night then on Wednesday night my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal to go in and get my own book.

One thing that people keep on saying to me is that the wealth and the fame must have made up for missing out on my childhood. But the idea of money - putting a price on your childhood - is ridiculous. You will never get those years back and you can't put a price on them.