These children that come at you with knives, they are your children. You taught them. I didn’t teach them. I just tried to help them stand up.
Meaning of the quote
The quote suggests that the children who become violent and aggressive are a reflection of the society and families that raised them. The speaker, Charles Manson, suggests that he did not create these children, but he tried to help them stand up for themselves. The message is that the responsibility for the actions of young people lies with the adults who are responsible for their upbringing and education.
More quotes from Charles Manson
I’m not of this generation.
{mb_by_description:plain}
I never had long hair before I got busted. I never had a beard before I got busted.
{mb_by_description:plain}
My life is not important here.
{mb_by_description:plain}
No sense makes sense.
{mb_by_description:plain}
Living is what scares me. Dying is easy.
{mb_by_description:plain}
So for you people who are filled with fear that I might someday be released: breathe easy, I don’t see it happening.
{mb_by_description:plain}
We’re not in Wonderland anymore Alice.
{mb_by_description:plain}
I punched my mother out once.
{mb_by_description:plain}
I can’t judge any of you. I have no malice against you and no ribbons for you. But I think that it is high time that you all start looking at yourselves, and judging the lie that you live in.
{mb_by_description:plain}
I loved my mother, she’s a good girl.
{mb_by_description:plain}
These children that come at you with knives, they are your children. You taught them. I didn’t teach them. I just tried to help them stand up.
{mb_by_description:plain}
I’m not very wise to many things.
{mb_by_description:plain}
I will have you removed if you don’t stop. I have a little system of my own.
{mb_by_description:plain}
I never thought I was normal, never tried to be normal.
{mb_by_description:plain}
My father is the jailhouse. My father is your system… I am only what you made me. I am only a reflection of you.
{mb_by_description:plain}
I’m probably one of the most dangerous men in the world if I want to be. But I never wanted to be anything but me.
{mb_by_description:plain}
How old am I? I’m as old as my mother told me. How’s that?
{mb_by_description:plain}
I was a beatnik in the ’50s before the hippies came along.
{mb_by_description:plain}
From the world of darkness I did loose demons and devils in the power of scorpions to torment.
{mb_by_description:plain}
Remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me. Doesn’t that give me equal right?
{mb_by_description:plain}
I have killed no one and I have ordered no one to be killed.
{mb_by_description:plain}
I can’t dislike you, but I will say this to you: you haven’t got long before you are all going to kill yourselves, because you are all crazy. And you can project it back at me, but I am only what lives inside each and every one of you.
{mb_by_description:plain}
Pain’s not bad, it’s good. It teaches you things. I understand that.
{mb_by_description:plain}
Just because you’re convicted in a court room doesn’t mean you’re guilty of something.
{mb_by_description:plain}
You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody’s crazy.
{mb_by_description:plain}
I have X’d myself from your world.
{mb_by_description:plain}
You are going to use this courtroom to kill me? I am going to fight for my life one way or another. You should let me do it with words.
{mb_by_description:plain}
Did I kill anyone?
{mb_by_description:plain}
I ain’t got no magical powers and mystical trips and all that kind of crap. It’s kind of silly.
{mb_by_description:plain}
If you’re going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy.
{mb_by_description:plain}
Getting up every day and going through this again and again is hard.
{mb_by_description:plain}
The real strong have no need to prove it to the phonies.
{mb_by_description:plain}