"I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth."

"I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out."

"Most children - I know I did when I was a kid - fantasize another set of parents. Or fantasize no parents. They don't tell their real parents about that - you don't want to tell Mom and Dad. Kids lead a very private life. And I was a typical child, I think. I was a liar."

"In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy. There's a cruelty to childhood, there's an anger."

"If we are going to try to get across to the poorest people in the world that we care about their plight and we want them to join one world with the rest of us, we have got to make promises and keep promises."

"All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today."

"Every single major push in education has made it worse and right now it's really bad because everything we've done is de-humanizing education. It's destroying the possibility of the teacher and the student having a warm, friendly, intellectual relationship."

"Strive today so that tomorrow may stand upon solid ground. Let this simple maxim guide your daily deeds — an essential principle for the reflective life."