“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

“Things have never been so swell
and I have never felt this well! I have never failed to feel… Pain!”

“I have never been any good at training children or dogs; that is why I am no good at training myself.”

“I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid.”

“My children have never brought any shame upon their father. They have been independent children, my children.”

“Some people seem as if they can never have been children, and others seem as if they could never be anything else.”

“I realize then that we never have children, we receive them. And sometimes it’s not for quite as long as we would have expected or hoped. But it is still far better than never having had those children at all.”

“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”

“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”

“If we pass on an unsustainable environment to our children we have failed them.”