One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

Children even infants are capable of sympathy. But only after adolescence are we capable of compassion.

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.

It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success.

For globalization to work for America it must work for working people. We should measure the success of our economy by the breadth of our middle class and the scope of opportunity offered to the poorest child to climb into that middle class.

There is no correlation between a childhood success and a professional athlete.

Look if you ask a child 'Would you rather have a fulfilled mother or a stay-at-home Sylvia Plath ' they'll pick Sylvia Plath every time. But I think it's really important that children don't feel their parents' emotional lives depend on their success.

The manic pursuit of success cost me everything I could love: my wife my three children some friends I would have liked to grow old with.

I feel lucky because I was a nerd which I talk about in the book but I had academic success so through that because that's what my parents put a great deal of value on I had a great childhood because I sort of fulfilled the expectations of being good at school.

Raising children is an uncertain thing success is reached only after a life of battle and worry.