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Every child senses, with all the horse sense that's in him, that any parent is angry inside when children misbehave and they dread more the anger that is rarely or never expressed openly, wondering how awful it might be.

A parent can seem very kind and gentle, but as any child knows, as soon as that parent gets stressed, they can suddenly turn and get a bit angry.

Every child is so different. Their experience growing up and their experience relating to the world has so much to do with their temperament, and their likes and their dislikes.

Children are a house's enemy. They don't mean to be - they just can't help it. It's their enthusiasm, their energy, their naturally destructive tendencies.

There is another thing about a kid, if we all remember, that you have an attraction to evil. Evil is exciting and evil is interesting, and plenty of kids have a fascination for it.

It's easy for me to go back to being a kid. You know how kids can be like savages before they get civilized? There's that sadist quality. Y'know, like boys who like to pick apart an insect for the sake of it.

The thing about a violent kid is that he can't play imaginatively.

The kid who can play imaginatively doesn't tend to be violent. It's the same with adults.

Kids are very cruel to each other.

When you're young, you don't have much sense. You don't have any reasoning power. You don't have any ability to take a blow, an insult, a hurt in the right way. There is no way a child can do that. All a child can do is feel the pang of it, the heartache of it.