Childhood
Clara was the second of three daughters born to Samuel Clemens and his wife Olivia Langdon Clemens in Elmira, New York. Her older sister was Susy, who died when Clara was only 22, and her only brother Langdon, died as an infant before she was born. Her younger sister was Jean. Clara had a serious accident as a child, while riding a toboggan she ended up being hurled into a great oak tree. This resulted in a severe leg injury that almost led to amputation.
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Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“[Children] do not yet lie to themselves and therefore have not entered upon that important tacit agreement which marks admission into the adult world, to wit, that I will respect your lies if you will agree to let mine alone. That unwritten contract is one of the clear dividing lines between the world of childhood and the world of adulthood.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)
“Modern children were considerably less innocent than parents and the larger society supposed, and postmodern children are less competent than their parents and the society as a whole would like to believe. . . . The perception of childhood competence has shifted much of the responsibility for child protection and security from parents and society to children themselves.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“If a child were kept in a place where he never saw any other but black and white till he were a man, he would have no more ideas of scarlet or green, than he that from his childhood never tasted an oyster, or a pineapple, has of those particular relishes.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)