113 Quotes On Innocence

Innocence, often perceived as a state of purity and untarnished perception, captures an essence that resonates deeply within the human experience. It serves as a poignant reminder of beginnings, untainted by the complexities of life, and often evokes a sense of nostalgia for simpler times. The profound nature of innocence can be observed in its ability to inspire, provoke thought, and reveal truths about the world and ourselves. In this collection, we explore 113 carefully curated quotes that delve into various dimensions of innocence, offering a window into its enduring impact on art, literature, and the human condition. Let these insights and reflections transport you to a realm where innocence is celebrated and pondered, a place that encourages a return to authenticity and sincerity in our everyday lives.

1. “A library is a place where you can lose your innocence without losing your virginity.” - Germaine Greer

2. “If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.” - Charlotte Brontë

3. “He moved like a dancer, which is not surprising; a horse is a beautiful animal, but it is perhaps most remarkable because it moves as if it always hears music.” - Mark Helprin

4. “Butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairy tales, That's all she ever thinks about,Riding with the wind.” - Jimi Hendrix

5. “Innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself.” - Joan Didion

6. “Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.” - Anne Frank

7. “The most sophisticated people I know - inside they are all children. ” - Jim Henson

8. “It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.” - John Adams

9. “He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activites in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.” - Cormac McCarthy

10. “They've done it before and they'll do it again and when they do it -- seems that only the children weep. Good night.” - Harper Lee

11. “It takes a very long time to become young.” - Pablo Picasso

12. “you boys can keep your virgins give me hot old women in high heels with asses that forgot to get old.” - Charles Bukowski

13. “It's never too late to have a happy childhood.” - Tom Robbins

14. “I'm not...' Angharad began, but then she thought. Not what? Not a bad person? Perhaps. But had she never known anger? Never held unkind thoughts? The stranger's observation was valid. No one was innocent of darkness.” - Charles de Lint

15. “To see her is a picture—To hear her is a tune—To know her an IntemperanceAs innocent as June—To know her not—Affliction—To own her for a FriendA warmth as near as if the SunWere shining in your Hand.” - Emily Dickinson

16. “Innocence is a kind of insanity” - Graham Greene

17. “A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley...He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!” - J.K. Rowling

18. “It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.” - Voltaire

19. “Unschuld ist kein Schutz.” - Thomas Fuller

20. “When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.” - Patrick Rothfuss

21. “That was my first instinct -- to protect him. It never occurred to me that there was a greater need to protect myself. Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.” - Graham Greene

22. “I never, even for a moment, doubted what they’d told me. This is why it is that adults and even parents can, unwittingly, be cruel: they cannot imagine doubt’s complete absence. They have forgotten.” - David Foster Wallace

23. “We speak of love when we destroy nature.It sounds like innocence of cruel arrogance.” - Toba Beta

24. “Saints preserve us,' Dr. Kellen said, and squeezed Galen's shoulder. 'What have we done to our youth?” - Jessica Day George

25. “Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.” - Albert Camus

26. “Dalgliesh was too experienced to assume that fear implied guilt; it was often the most innocent who were the most terrified.” - P.D. James

27. “There is no aphrodisiac like innocence” - Jean Baudrillard

28. “It is photography itself that creates the illusion of innocence. Its ironies of frozen narrative lend to its subjects an apparent unawareness that they will change or die. It is the future they are innocent of. Fifty years on we look at them with the godly knowledge of how they turne dout after all - who they married, the date of their death - with no thought for who will one day be holding photographs of us.” - Ian McEwan

29. “I want to get out of here means I want to be innocent.” - Kathy Acker

30. “Innocence invites protection, yet we might be smarter to protect ourselves against it...” - Megan Johns

31. “You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.” - Aberjhani

32. “Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes; and there has in all ages been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin.” - G.K. Chesterton

33. “There is no client as scary as an innocent man."J. Michael Haller, Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles, 1962.” - Michael Connelly

34. “In Paris, Julien’s position with regard to Madame de Renal would very soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the child of the novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found in three or four novels, and even in the lyrics of the Gymnase, a clear statement of their situation. The novels would have outlined for them the part to be played, shown them the model to copy; and this model, sooner or later, albeit without the slightest pleasure, and perhaps with reluctance, vanity would have compelled Julien to follow.In a small town of the Aveyron or the Pyrenees, the slightest incident would have been made decisive by the ardour of the climate. Beneath our more sombre skies, a penniless young man, who is ambitious only because the refinement of his nature puts him in need of some of those pleasures which money provides, is in daily contact with a woman of thirty who is sincerely virtuous, occupied with her children, and never looks to novels for examples of conduct. Everything goes slowly, everything happens by degrees in the provinces: life is more natural.” - Stendhal

35. “Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.” - William Blake

36. “People say you're born innocent, but it's not true. You inherit all kinds of things that you can do nothing about. You inherit your identity, your history, like a birthmark that you can't wash off. ... We are born with our heads turned back, but my mother says we have to face into the future now. You have to earn your own innocence, she says. You have to grow up and become innocent.” - Hugo Hamilton

37. “But you were a goody-goody, you said.' 'Even goody-goodies think about such things. In fact, I would say that's what defines us. We're always thinking about the things we don't dare do, figuring out where the lines are drawn, so we can go right up to the edge of things, then plead innocence on the ground of a technicality.” - Laura Lippman

38. “This was when he first suspected that the kindly child-loving God extolled by his headmistress might not exist. As it turned out, most major world events suggested the same. But for Theo’s sincerely godless generation, the question hasn’t come up. No one in his bright, plate-glass, forward-looking school ever asked him to pray, or sing an impenetrable cheery hymn. There’s no entity for him to doubt. His initiation, in front of the TV, before the dissolving towers, was intense but he adapted quickly. These days he scans the papers for fresh developments the way he might a listings magazine. As long as there’s nothing new, his mind is free. International terror, security cordons, preparations for war — these represent the steady state, the weather. Emerging into adult consciousness, this is the world he finds.” - Ian McEwan

39. “All things truly wicked start from innocence.” - Ernest Hemingway

40. “I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody else, will now think me wicked.""We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us.” - Charlotte Brontë

41. “Those who will never be fooled can never be delighted, because without self-forgetfulness there can be no delight, and this is a great and grievous loss.” - Alan Jacobs

42. “There is an innocence in admiration: it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired.” - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

43. “When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me, my pale face, the way the muscles in my neck stuck out like thin wire. I saw how much that cruel necklace became me. And, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away.” - Angela Carter

44. “We see that in the organic world, to the same degree that reflection gets darker and weaker, grace grows ever more radiant and dominant. But just as two lines intersect on one side of a point, and after passing through infinity, suddenly come together again on the other side; or the image in a concave mirror suddenly reappears before us after drawing away into the infinite distance, so too, does grace return once perception, as it were, has traversed the infinite--such that it simultaneously appears the purest in human bodily structures that are either devoid of consciousness or which possess an infinite consciousness, such as in the jointed manikin or the god.” - Heinrich von Kleist

45. “The law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him.” - John Marshall

46. “He himself, he realized, had always been most abominably frightened, even at the height of his divine power, a frail god upon a rickety throne, afraid of opening letters, of making decisions, afraid of the instinctive knowledge in the eyes of mules, of the innocent eyes of good men, of the elastic nature of the passions, even of the devotion he had received from some men, and one woman, and dogs.” - Patrick White

47. “I had the same sensation as when we watch someone sleep. When asleep we all become children again. Perhaps because in the state of slumber we can do no wrong and are unconscious of life, the greatest criminal and most self- absorbed egotist are holy, by a natural magic, as long as they're sleeping. For me there's no discernible difference between killing a child and killing a sleeping man.” - Fernando Pessoa

48. “It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't.” - Mignon McLaughlin

49. “And that's what innocence is. It's simple and trusting like a child, not judgmental and committed to one narrow point of view. If you are locked into a pattern of thinking and responding, your creativity gets blocked. You miss the freshness and magic of the moment. Learn to be innocent again, and that freshness never fades.” - Michael Jackson

50. “In their innocence, very young children know themselves to be light and love. If we will allow them, they can teach us to see ourselves the same way. ” - Michael Jackson

51. “The innocence of children is what makes them stand out as a shining example to the rest of Mankind.” - Kurt Chambers

52. “Ako nisam kriv, onda su pogriješili, zatvorili su nedužna čovjeka. Ako me puste, priznaće svoju grešku, a to nije ni lako ni korisno. Niko pametan ne može od njih tražiti da rade protiv sebe. Zahtjev bi bio nestvaran, i smiješan. Onda ja moram biti kriv. A kako da me puste ako sam kriv? Razumiješ li? Ne treba da budemo suviše nepravedni. Svako polazi sa svoga stanovišta i smatramo da je u redu kad tako mi činimo, ali kad to oni čine, onda nam smeta. Priznaćeš da je to nedosljedno.” - Meša Selimović

53. “Adults had the notion that juveniles needed to suffer. Only when they had suffered enough to wipe out most of their naturally joyous spirits and innocence were they staid enough to be considered mature. An adult was essentially a broken-down child.” - Piers Anthony

54. “Don't care what people sayJust follow your own wayDon't give up and use the chanceTo return to innocence.That's not the beginning of the endThat's the return to yourselfThe return to innocence.” - Enigma

55. “We Lannisters do have a certain pride," said Tyrion Lannister.“Pride?” Catelyn snapped. His mocking tone and easy manner made her angry. “Arrogance, some might call it. Arrogance and avarice and lust for power.”“My brother is undoubtedly arrogant,” Tyrion Lannister replied. “My father is the soul of avarice, and my sweet sister Cersei lusts for power with every waking breath. I, however, am innocent as a little lamb. Shall I bleat for you?” He grinned.” - George R.R. Martin

56. “When he saw Tyler, his face went serious, which struck me as comical. Andy had always been protective, but when it came to me having anything to do with guys, he felt it was his duty to inform and protect me from the ones he thought were most like himself. When I turned thirteen, he pulled me aside and we had his version of 'the talk,' which mostly consisted of a bunch of 'uhs' and 'ums,' but I got the gist of his speech: boys only wanted one thing, and I shouldn't give it to them until I was at least thirty-three. And married.” - Jessi Kirby

57. “In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.” - Criss Jami

58. “Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it is right.” - Anne Lamott

59. “This was me before I knew about anything hard, when my whole life was packed lunches and art projects and spelling quizzes.” - Nina LaCour

60. “Henry was thinking of the younger Holland sister of the way she could go from being an impetuous girl to a knowing woman in a few seconds and never lose the stars in her eyes.” - Anna Godbersen

61. “To express nostalgia for a childhood we no longer share is to deny the actual significance and humanity of children.” - Perry Nodelman

62. “Isn't life,' she stammered, 'isn't life--' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood.'Isn't it, darling?' said Laurie.” - Katherine Mansfield

63. “Well, did he do it?"She always asked the irrelevant question. It didn't matter in terms of the strategy of the case whether the defendant "did it" or not. What mattered was the evidence against him -- the proof -- and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt.” - Michael Connelly

64. “You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.” - Lionel Shriver

65. “Staring at a world too horrible to comprehend, believing -- by dint of ignorance and innocence -- that beneath this unbearable contract of guilt and blame there is always an older contract that may bind and release in a more salutary way.” - Gregory Maguire

66. “Voll Blüten steht der Pfirsichbaum nicht jede wächst zur Frucht sie schimmern hell wie Rosenschaum durch Blau und Wolkenflucht. Wie Blüten geh'n Gedanken auf hundert an jedem Tag -- lass' blühen, lass' dem Ding den Lauf frag' nicht nach dem Ertrag! Es muss auch Spiel und Unschuld sein und Blütenüberfluss sonst wär' die Welt uns viel zu klein und Leben kein Genuss.” - Hermann Hesse

67. “How could he maintain the apology in his eyes without getting carried away by her cherubic innocence?” - Faraaz Kazi

68. “No mi kršćani upućeni smo po središtu našega Creda - 'mučen pod Poncijem Pilatom' - u povijest u kojoj je bilo razapinjanja i mučenja, u kojoj se plakalo i tako rijetko ljubilo. I nikakav od povijesti udaljeni mit, nikakav Platonovi idejni Bog, nikakva gnostička soteriologija i nikakav apstraktni govor o povijesnosti naše egzistencije ne mogu nam vratiti onu nedužnost koju smo u toj povijesti izgubili.” - Johann Baptist Metz

69. “The truth is, not one of is innocent. We all have sins to confess.” - C.W. Gortner

70. “If someone had told Allie that she would commit a premeditated act of murder, she would not have believed it. She would have spouted off all the reasons how she could never be capable of such a thing—that no matter how dire the circumstances, she would find a better way. She was so naive, so arrogant to think that the laws of necessity and unthinkable circumstance could not apply to her. She could tell herself that this was an act of mercy, but that would be a lie. This was an act of war. An act of terrorism. It was nothing less than an assassination.If I do this, Allie told herself, I am no better than Mary. I will have sunk to the worst possible place a person can go. After this moment, I will be a cold-blooded killer and it can never be taken back.So the question was, did Allie Johnson have the strength to sacrifice all that was left of her innocence if it meant she might save the world?” - Neal Shusterman

71. “No matter what happens, always Keep your childhood innocence. It's the most important thing.” - Federico Fellini

72. “I was very lighthearted. This often the way when the abandonment of personal responsibility is enforced: neither wronged innocence or just guilt can seriously impair the sensation of freedom one has.” - Anthony Burgess

73. “My passionate puritan!” - Violet Winspear

74. “Never such innocence,Never before or since,As changed itself to pastWithout a word--the menLeaving the gardens tidy,The thousands of marriagesLasting a little while longer:Never such innocence again.” - Philip Larkin

75. “Wir alle, ob schuldig oder nicht, ob alt oder jung, müssen die Vergangenheit annehmen. Wir alle sind von ihren Folgen betroffen und für sie in Haftung genommen. [...] Es geht nicht darum, Vergangenheit zu bewältigen. Das kann man gar nicht. Sie läßt sich ja nicht nachträglich ändern oder ungeschehen machen. Wer aber vor der Vergangenheit die Augen verschließt, wird blind für die Gegenwart. Wer sich der Unmenschlichkeit nicht erinnern will, der wird wieder anfällig für neue Ansteckungsgefahren."[Ansprache am 8. Mai 1985 in der Gedenkstunde im Plenarsaal des Deutschen Bundestages]” - Richard von Weizsäcker

76. “Wir lernen aus unserer eigenen Geschichte, wozu der Mensch fähig ist. Deshalb dürfen wir uns nicht einbilden, wir seien nun als Menschen anders und besser geworden. Es gibt keine endgültig errungene moralische Vollkommenheit - für niemanden und kein Land! Wir haben als Menschen gelernt, wir bleiben als Menschen gefährdet. Aber wir haben die Kraft, Gefährdungen immer von neuem zu überwinden."[Ansprache am 8. Mai 1985 in der Gedenkstunde im Plenarsaal des Deutschen Bundestages]” - Richard von Weizsäcker

77. “...I'm innocent still -inside me are stained glass windows that have never been broken- and when I see your light it stains my soul with color ...” - John Geddes

78. “I just wanted things to be simple. I didn't understand why things had to be so complicated for all the grown ups. And I decided that if growing up meant things got confusing, then I would stay little forever. I would stay simple. But unfortunately everything around me did its best not to be. The world liked to be complex. It liked to twist, to distort. To bleed you dry of whatever feeling you could muster while still letting you hold on to your sanity so that you could experience heartache at its prime. I didn't know how cold the world could be when I was eleven. If I would have known...maybe I would have packed a sweater.” - A.L. Collins

79. “I’m not comfortable in this stadium,” I explained, trying to look calm.“I know. And you hate Fang looking at those girls. But we’re still havingfun, and Fang still loves you, and you’ll still save the world. Okay?” - James Patterson

80. “Who else but me is ever going to read these letters?” - Anne Frank

81. “O how can wicked men seem so steady and untouched with such black hearts, while poor innocents stand like malefactors before them!” - Samuel Richardson

82. “Adults havethe benefit of experience and know the trick will work as long as the technique is correct.When we “grow up” we gain this experience and knowledge, but we lose our innocence andsense of wonder. In other words, the price we pay for growing up is a permanent sense ofloss.” - Alberto Alvaro Ríos

83. “Just as she was unaware of the hidden currents of politics running below the surface of College affairs, so the Scholars, for their part, would have been unable to see the rich seething stew of alliances and enmities and feuds and treaties which was a child’s life in Oxford. Children playing together: how pleasant to see! What could be more innocent and charming?” - Philip Pullman

84. “My child, I know you're not a childBut I still see you running wildBetween those flowering trees.Your sparkling dreams, your silver laughYour wishes to the stars above Are just my memories.And in your eyes the oceanAnd in your eyes the seaThe waters frozen overWith your longing to be free.Yesterday you'd awokenTo a world incredibly old.This is the age you are brokenOr turned into gold.You had to kill this child, I know.To break the arrows and the bowTo shed your skin and change.The trees are flowering no moreThere's blood upon the tiles floorThis place is dark and strange.I see you standing in the stormHolding the curse of youthEach of you with your storyEach of you with your truth.Some words will never be spokenSome stories will never be told.This is the age you are brokenOr turned into gold.I didn't say the world was good.I hoped by now you understoodWhy I could never lie.I didn't promise you a thing. Don't ask my wintervoice for springJust spread your wings and fly.Though in the hidden gardenDown by the green green laneThe plant of love grows next toThe tree of hate and pain.So take my tears as a token.They'll keep you warm in the cold.This is the age you are brokenOr turned into gold.You've lived too long among usTo leave without a traceYou've lived too short to understandA thing about this place.Some of you just sit there smokingAnd some are already sold. This is the age you are brokenOr turned into gold.This is the age you are broken or turned into gold.” - Antonia Michaelis

85. “If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?” - Michael Connelly

86. “I bambini sono senza passato ed è questo tutto il mistero dell'innocenza magica del loro sorriso...” - Milan Kundera

87. “This is a bad story.”“Sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”“No, you should,” I say.“But—”“I don’t want there to be bad stories and me not know them.” - Emma Donoghue

88. “But I think parents aren't teachers anymore. Parents -- or a whole lot of us, at least -- lead by mouth instead of by example. It seems to me that if a child's hero is their mother or father -- or even better, both of them in tandem -- then the rough road of learning and experience is going to be smoothed some. And every little bit of smoothing helps, in this rough old world that wants children to be miniature adults, devoid of charm and magic and the beauty of innocence.” - Robert R. McCammon

89. “Innocence is thought charming because it offers delightful possibilities for exploitation.” - Mason Cooley

90. “Spring and Fall: To a Young ChildMárgarét, are you gríevingOver Goldengrove unleaving?Leáves, líke the things of man, youWith your fresh thoughts care for, can you?Ah! ás the heart grows olderIt will come to such sights colderBy and by, nor spare a sighThough worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;And yet you wíll weep and know why.Now no matter, child, the name:Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressedWhat heart heard of, ghost guessed:It ís the blight man was born for,It is Margaret you mourn for.” - Gerard Manley Hopkins

91. “Why should we remain innocent of what lurks in the shadows? How can we live in the world if we don't understand how dark and brutal it can be?” - Penny Matthews

92. “World & people only seem unlovable due to toxins & lies they've been fed. Release distortions of mind. Return all to innocence & freedom” - jay woodman

93. “If Innocent is happy, it is because he is innocent. If he can defy the conventions, it is just because he can keep the commandments. It is just because he does not want to kill but to excite to life that a pistol is still as exciting to him as it is to a schoolboy. It is just because he does not want to steal, because he does not covet his neighbour's goods, that he has captured the trick (oh, how we all long for it!), the trick of coveting his own goods. It is just because he does not want to commit adultery that he achieves the romance of sex; it is just because he loves one wife that he has a hundred honeymoons.” - G.K. Chesterton

94. “An innocent bird is not innocent from the insect’s point of view! Only man can attain the rank of innocence through becoming a peaceful vegetarian!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

95. “There is no place for innocence on the battlefield.” - Jocelyn Murray

96. “He was an American character, one typical of men of his generation, men who embraced the notion of freedom and individualism and the open road without always knowing its price, and whose enthusiasms could as easily lead to the cowardice of McCarthyism as to the heroics of World War II. Men who were both dangerous and promising precisely because of their fundamental innocence; men prone, in the end, to disappointment.” - Barack Obama

97. “But I rather thought--I mean, I heard you'd killed Balder the Fair.""I never did," snapped Loki crossly. "Well, no one ever proved I did. What happened to the presumption of innocence? Besides, he was supposed to be invulnerable. Was it my fault that he wasn't?” - Joanne Harris

98. “They are funny little representatives of simplicity, of awareness. No one is more aware of themselves as these children are. They have nothing, have no one but us, have seemingly no reason to be hopeful...yet they are. They choose to be happy even though the obviously easier choice would be to be frightened or sad and they have real reason to be those things as well. But they have life and faith and hope and love and they choose those things. Their innocence is addicting, their hope is catching and I'm happy to be surrounded by them.” - Fisher Amelie

99. “No, it is not only our fate but our business to lose innocence, and once we have lost that it is futile to attempt a picnic in Eden.” - Elizabeth Bowen

100. “She blinked, sat up, and saw Chris in the bathroom doorway. He'd just gotten out the shower. His hair was damp, and he was dressed only in his briefs. The sight of his thin, boyish body - all ribs and elbows and knees - pulled at her heart, for he looked so innocent and vulnerable. He was so small and fragile that she wondered how she could ever protect him, and renewed fear rose in her.” - Dean Koontz

101. “You either keep your childhood innocence or you rot!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

102. “As long as you stay as a good hearted person, you will keep the innocence in your face.” - Mehmet Murat ildan

103. “The flowered trim on the hems [of the dress] seemed superfluous, even frivolous, but at the same time it comforted her, as though the idea that a seamstress had thought to adorn clothing so innocently implied that somewhere, innocence was safe.” - Gael Baudino

104. “There are times where excessive innocence seems so monstrous that it becomes hateful.” - Gaston Leroux

105. “Innocence has no place alongside immortality.” - Courtney M. Privett

106. “I've always felt that distant train whistles heard in the dead of night are the universe's way of letting us know the best days are neither ahead nor behind us...they're happening right now, cradled in the palms of our hands. But that doesn't change the fact that the whiskey, weed, and romance eventually runs out and the night will soon turn to day.” - Dave Matthes

107. “Innocence still lives within our hearts and the child within each of us knows right from wrong.” - Bryant McGill

108. “and yet a child’s utter innocence is but its blank ignorance, and the innocence more or less wanes as intelligence waxes.” - Herman Melville

109. “Children have a different convention of the fearful until they have been taught the proper things to be shocked at.” - John Wyndham

110. “Things that are truly innocent don’t need to be labelled as such.” - Zoe Heller

111. “The world’s crawling with stupid, innocent girls, and I’m just one of them, self-consciously chasing after dreams that will never come true.” - Haruki Murakami

112. “The innocence of such children doesn't answer our deepest questions about this vale of tears to which we are condemned, but it helps to dispel them. That is the secret to family life.” - Joyce Carol Oates

113. “In the middle of a wrist's suicide slash-line, below the layered skin and above the pulse, there's an acupuncture point that says, Get back to who you were meant to be. This is the heart spot, the center. Your whole life the skin on that place will stay closest to being a baby's skin, as close as you can get anymore to the way you started, the way you once thought you'd always be.” - Monica Drake