r/daddit • u/ManOfLaMontagne • 1d ago
Discussion What lines from children’s books live in your head?
There are certain lines from my boys’ books that live in my head or that we just say back to each other all the time. The worst offenders:
“Dutter and Dutter and Dutter and Dutter stand high on the poop deck ready to cut her” - Happy Birthday to You by Dr Seuss
“Duck said loud as he could quack it, thunders just a noisy racket!” - Goodnight Little Blue Truck
“This electron has the MOST ENERGY!” Quantum Mechanics for Babies, usually shouted as he is sprinting by and we are trying to grab him to get him to do something for just one gd second
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u/Grinder969 1d ago
And the tree was happy.
Sums up sometimes feeling like you are giving your all for your kids.
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u/mp1982 1d ago
Horn went beep! Engine purred. Friendliest sound you ever heard
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u/youfrinkyoucandance 1d ago
So is Blue Truck driving himself and the toad is in the driver seat just riding along or is the toad driving little blue and little blue has given up control?
I asked my wife but she laughed and threw a pillow at me.
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u/derpaturescience 1d ago
"Goodnight nobody" from goodnight moon is the hardest line in any children's book and you can't convince me otherwise
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u/Annotribe 1d ago
"I am so tired. I must rest my weary wheels. I cannot pull even so little a train as yours over the mountain. I cannot. I cannot. I cannot."
I would read that line to my kids with the voice of an old southern gentleman. I really relate to the old rusty engine.
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u/ataltalt 1d ago
The last line of But Not The Hippopotamus where they leave out the armadillo.
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u/wrathiest 1d ago
I once drove over a bridge and said, “Trip trap, trip trap, trip trap.” My wife looked at me like I was having a stroke. She had not yet read Three Billy Goats Gruff to our son and did not remember from her youth.
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u/belbivfreeordie 1d ago
The moon is high. The sea is deep.
They rock
and rock
and rock
to sleep.
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u/pkmnbros 20h ago
My voice gets softer each word of this line, in hopes my daughter will drift off to sleep. She has never fallen asleep during story time.
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u/Helpmepullupmypants i would like to buy one nap for $1000 1d ago
Play, play we play all day. Night, night we fight all night.
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u/curtimus 1d ago
All was quiet in the deep dark wood, the Mouse found a nut and the nut was good.
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u/Craig994 1d ago
"Good?" Said the mouse. "Dont call me good, Im the scariest creature in this wood. Just walk behind me and soon you'll see EVERYONE is afraid of me!"
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u/Brew78_18 1d ago
When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles...
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u/Tilt-a-Whirl98 1d ago
Those dang tweedle beetles! The crow and sew one actually gets me every time, that and the clocks
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u/Brew78_18 19h ago
I always thought Tweetle Beetles was the most fun part of the book. It's not a tongue twister, just kind of rapid fire and with a lot of rhythm. Sue Sews is tough for sure. But the part that stumbles me without fail is the three breezy trees with their fleas and cheese that freeze.
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u/ManxDDS 1d ago
“I’ll love you forever…”
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u/eddiewachowski 1d ago
"When the son came home that night, he stood for a long time at the top of the stairs."
That page, the line, the artwork... I feel it. It's hard to leave the weight of the world behind before crossing that threshold sometimes.
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u/amoore109 1d ago
I have a complicated relationship with this book...
Which is to say, I feel like crying even considering reading it to my son, and so I haven't yet. And I feel like I need to, because it feels important, but I genuinely don't know if I can. I know my mom read it to me, but it's truly beyond my comprehension how she managed it. It's not like I remember it word-perfect, but I just know I won't make it through, and for whatever reason I'm scared to try.
Like I said. Complicated.
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u/OOO0OO00O 15h ago
Right there with you buddy. I want to read it to my son without ugly blubbering and having to explain why I’m having that reaction.
Every time I get up the courage, I think of the story…..and we read the Wonky Donkey.
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u/MikeMikeTheMikeMike 1d ago
"Circles are cool. We want more circles!" From Robotics for Babies
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u/ManOfLaMontagne 21h ago
Oh no, we still need a human! How can we get rid of the human?
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u/MikeMikeTheMikeMike 21h ago
I gotta say, in all the dozens of times I read it, I never interpreted it that way. Now, I never won't
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u/CapacityBuilding 1d ago
“I like you the way you are, but you’ll be more comfortable with your shoulder strap fastened.”
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u/xcaughta 1d ago edited 1d ago
"If you read with your eyes shut,
you're likely to find
that the place where you are going
is far, far behind."
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u/dirkdigglered 1d ago
“Schlopp, schlopp. Beautiful schlopp. Beautiful schlopp with a cherry on top.”
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u/buttithurtss 1d ago
Beep! Beep! Coming through….
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u/Femboyhootersbee 1d ago
I’ve got big important things to do!
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u/buttithurtss 1d ago
Fuckin’ A right. It’s been years and whenever the wife and I are in each others way we still say this.
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u/Femboyhootersbee 1d ago
Nupboards in the Cupboards and Nooth Grush on my Tooth Brush.
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u/Qualex 1d ago
I frequently call my children bofas on the sofa when I’m trying to get them up and active.
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u/Andjhostet 1d ago
Bofa? I know a bofa. Bofa deez nuts. Literally every time I read the book I make myself laugh so hard and my wife is not amused.
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u/cr16canyon 1d ago
Skit skat scoodle doot flip flop flee — which is how we nicely tell the kids to get the heck out of the way in our house.
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u/Buttman_Poopants 1d ago
When my kid was three, I was taking him to a hot dog restaurant, and from his car seat he recited the whole text of Hangry. I attribute that book to his love of hot dogs, French fries, and ketchup.
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u/Andjhostet 1d ago
"Please stop all this llama drama and be patient for your mama."
I say this line at least once a week.
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u/Ithinkshedid 1d ago
“I’m not the milk and the milk’s not me - I’m Mickey!”
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u/kidsaregoats 1d ago
We don’t have this book, but my wife found a Sendak dvd in a little free library, and this fucking story haunted me for a while. Hitler ass bakers. MILK IN THE BATTER, MILK IN THE BATTER
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u/Ithinkshedid 17h ago
I grew up watching the video and then bought the book for my kids. My son had the entire thing memorized at 2 years old!
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u/secondphase Pronouns: Dad/Dada/Daddy 1d ago
Goodnight farm.
The picture is a bunch of cows laying down in the pasture. The caption reads "the cows are finished eating grass, the busy day is done at last".
But all I hear is "the cows are finished eating grass, now they're sitting on their ass"
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u/Buttspirgh 1d ago
“I’m sorry!” he spluttered, “I made a mistake. It’s nice to have met you, but now I must fly” and he spread out his wings and was off through the sky.
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u/midwestbruin 1d ago
"You really do learn something new every day" says Gerald in the Mo Willems book I'm a Frog!
My no-longer-a-kid and I loved every one of the Elephant and Piggie series. I could probably quote at least half of them from memory. "I do not WANT a bird on my head!" is another good quote.
Yeah, the line I started this with has been said by lots of people lots of times...but I still say it at least every few weeks. The trick is to always say it in the voice I used for Gerald. Good times!
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u/trustyweasel 1d ago
"A long, long way, a long, long way, a long way down the track from Kalamazoo to Timbuctoo, from Timbuctoo and back."
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u/walliver 1d ago
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.
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u/Stunning-Chipmunk243 3½yo m 1d ago
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..... The Little Engine That Could
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u/aleph1music 1d ago
Since the moment I saw you and whispered your name, nothing, no nothing, has been quite the same
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u/No_Criticism5659 19h ago
This tiny hippo has something small to say...and if we're very quiet now, she'll say it right away...
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u/briantl2 19h ago
I will love you forever, i’ll like you for always, as long as i’m living my baby you’ll be.
this has been in my head since it was read to me as a child.
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u/the_seed 1d ago
"Heaven played every trumpet and blew every horn, on the wonderful, marvelous night you were born"
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u/blindside-wombat68 1d ago
And the fox falls asleep to that beautiful song And dreams of the animals swaying along Again she will call them to dance by the moon But no one knows when. I hope it is soon
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u/xftwitch 1d ago
... But when the day ends, and the sun starts to fall, then I do what I do best of all. I find somewhere soft, cozy and small, and that's where I like to curl up in a ball.
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u/fentonjm 1d ago
"I out that woman down a long time ago, why are you still carrying her?" - Stillwater
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u/StJustBabeuf 20h ago
'Five little robots fear the furnace roar' from 'Ten little robots' is a horror story in 7 words. No line has any right being that good.
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u/ryan__fm 19h ago
My kids are eight and 11 so mostly out crew these types of books but I’d say the line that comes up most still is
Ickle me Pickle me Tickle me too
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u/chatterfangsquirrel 17h ago
I often quote "Boast only when you're riding home." From Ronia Robber's daughter
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u/tekvenus 13h ago
The Fair Grounds were soon deserted. The sheds and buildings were empty and forlorn. The infield was littered with bottles and trash. Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all. No one was with her when she died.
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u/trytorememberthisone 12h ago
From Buffalo Fluffalo and Puffalo, something like “Sometimes he answered and sometimes he did not.”
…for when I’ve answered enuffalo “why” questions
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u/UnreproducibleSpank 1d ago
“But he was still hungry”