“However, as every parent of a small child knows, converting a large object into small fragments is considerably easier than the reverse process.”

“However painful the process of leaving home, for parents and for children, the really frightening thing for both would be the prospect of the child never leaving home.”

“Flies can eat toads! (Although astonishment may be lessened in noting that the tiny toads are much smaller than enormous fly larvae.) Unusually large insects and maximally small vertebrates have also been featured in the few other recorded cases of such reversals - frogs, small birds, even a mouse, consumed by praying mantids, for example.”

“Life with a Jolly Parent is a bit like life in a holiday camp. The beds are too small and there's an outbreak of Salmonella every five minutes.”

“Every process pushed far enough tends to reverse or flip suddenly. Chiasmus – the reversal to process caused by increasing its speed, scope or size.”

“Everything is explicable in the terms of the behavior of a small child.”

“The narcissistic, the domineering, the possessive woman can succeed in being a "loving” mother as long as the child is small. Only the really loving woman, the woman who is happier in giving than in taking, who is firmly rooted in her own existence, can be a loving mother when the child is in the process of separation.”

“A system whereby each child told the parent how hungry he was would be ideal for the parent, and, as we have seen, such a system seems to have evolved. But the young are in a strong position to lie, because they know exactly how hungry they are, while the parent can only guess whether they are telling the truth or not. It is almost impossible for a parent to detect a small lie, although it might see through a big one.”

“Discipline teaches a child to resent the parent, not to be responsible for the natural process of action and consequence.”

“A parent knows an individual child's needs better than a set of guidelines will. A group of parents and teachers in a community will almost always know what's best for that community's students, than that of state board of education.”