“When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's [children's] minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.”

“The aim of the poet is to inform or delight, or to combine together, in what he says, both pleasure and applicability to life. In instructing, be brief in what you say in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully. Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full. Fiction invented in order to please should remain close to reality.”

“It was after Nick had left me that I learned the lesson: its when you don't love somebody that you do notice the little things. Then you mind them. You mind them terribly.”

“...children learn much more, far more quickly than adults. Do you know why that is? Because they're open-minded. Because they want to know and they want to learn. Adults, think they know it all. They grow up and forget so easily and instead of opening their minds and developing it they choose what to believe and what not to believe. You can't make a choice on things like that: you either believe or you don't. That's why their learning is slower. They are more cynical, they lose faith and they demend to know things that will help them get by day by day. They've no interest in the extras...It's the extras that make life.”

“When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it's amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children.”

“It is the responsibility of every adult... to make sure that children hear what we have learned from the lessons of life and to hear over and over that we love them and that they are not alone.”