“Looking after a very sick child was the Olympics of parenting.”

“The quickest way for a parent to get a child's attention is to sit down and look comfortable.”

“Sick children inevitably become arrested: You are fated to live out your days as the child you were when diagnosed, the child who believes there is a life after a novel ends.”

“When a child is given to his parents, a crown is made for that child in Heaven, and woe to the parents who raise a child without consciousness of that eternal crown!”

“A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents. This latter nomenclature, by the way, would be an excellent piece of consciousness-raising for the children themselves. A child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose -or reject- when she becomes old enough to do so.”

“The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents — because they have a tame child-creature in their house.”