People with bad consciences always fear the judgment of children.

One of the darkest deepest shames so many of us mothers feel nowadays is our fear that we are Bad Mothers that we are failing our children and falling far short of our own ideals.

What our children have to fear is not the cars on the highways of tomorrow but our own pleasure in calculating the most elegant parameters of their deaths.

Mine are the deep-seated fears established when we are children and they never quite go away: the fear of being helpless the fear of being trapped the fear of being out of control.

Even as we enumerate their shortcomings the rigor of raising children ourselves makes clear to us our mothers' incredible strength. We fear both. If they are not strong who will protect us? If they are not imperfect how can we equal them?

We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind's greatest gift also its greatest curse is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.

My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain Earnest Hemingway Jack London Harriett Beecher Stowe Pearl Buck Charles Dickens Rudyard Kipling Alfred Lord Tennyson to name a few.

My discrepancy with children in the industry is that they are made famous before they know who they are as human beings.

The records of adopted children are sealed in California. That seal is considered inviolable... The judge ruled that because I was famous he didn't have the same rights as other kids.

Now we believe that the majority of teachers in America know our system must be reformed to put students first so that America can compete that teachers don't teach to become rich or famous. They teach because they love children.