“Conversations with adults other than a person's parents had more of an outcome.”

“How old were you when you first realized that your parents were human? That they were not omnipotent, that what they said did not, in fact, go, they had dreams and feelings and scars? Or have you not realized that yet?Do you still call your parents and have a one-sided conversation with them, child to parent, not adult to adult?”

“There is no parent more vulnerable to the excesses of overparenting than an unhappy parent. One of the most important things we do for our children is to present them with a version of adult life that is appealing and worth striving for.”

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”

“There is nothing more pathetically sad than a parent who teaches a child not to hit by spanking them. Well, that, and adults who think hitting someone will solve a problem.”

“It is a lovely oddity of human nature that a person is more inclined to interrupt two people in conversation than one person alone with a book.”