“Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.”

“And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.”

“If all we ever offer is blanket praise without any meaning behind it, kids will always seek approval because they'll never feel satisfied. If we offer genuine encouragement for their accomplishments, they won't need our approval; they'll approve of themselves.”

“When we approve of ourselves we do not need any further stamps from others.”

“A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.”

“Late middle age, he was coming to understand, was a time of life when everything was predictable and yet somehow you failed to see any of it coming.”