“There are many different ways of approaching parenting as there are cultures. However, in non-industrialized cultures, the similarities are also striking. Extended nursing, co-sleeping, carrying the baby in close physical contact, responding promptly to cries or distress, never leaving a baby alone, are all virtually universal in traditional societies that have not become overly "westernized".”

“Having a purebred human baby is like having a purebred dog; it's nothing but vanity, human vanity.”

“... but I couldn't quite believe that sex was the motivating force behind all human behavior, and that I was left out of the great cultural conversation because I had not been initiated into the mystery.”

“...please remember that leaving your baby alone protesting for more fun with you while you get dressed is not the same things as abandonment. Similarly, leaving your baby alone protesting for more fun when she needs to sleep is not neglect. ”

“It is a highly valued function of society to prevent changes in the rules of the many games it embraces... Deviancy, however, is the very essence of culture. Whoever merely follows the script, merely repeating the past, is culturally impoverished. There are variations in the quality of deviation; not all divergence from the past is culturally significant. Any attempt to vary from the past in such a way as to cut the past off, causing it to be forgotten, has little cultural importance. Greater significance attaches to those variations that bring the tradition into view in a new way, allowing the familiar to be seen as unfamiliar, as requiring a new appraisal of all that we have been- and therefore all that we are. Cultural deviation does not return us to the past, but continues what was begun but not finished in the past... Properly speaking, a culture does not have a tradition; it is a tradition.”

“I held it over my heart. Mrs. Worth smiled. "That's where a book should be carried.”

“Psychology researchers now claim that it is important for babies to learn how to stop crying by themselves. Fortunately, many parents still prefer to comfort their babies. If they didn't, we might find ourselves living in a society of very solitary people, who had learned to control thier distress rather than to find strength through sharing it.”