Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.

The greatest service that can be offered to children who show personality traits or inclinations that might not be understood by the adults around them is to allow them to express their own unique humanity.

I didn’t start sweating until I had children. That was one of the first things I realized when my daughter Violet was born – I started getting wicked BO. You know there’s a difference between basketball BO and stress BO? This was definitely stress BO. Like, new dad BO.

I think I am smart unless I am really, really in love, and then I am ridiculously stupid.

I believe life is an intelligent thing: that things aren’t random.

Bigotry is probably the thing I detest most.

If a subject excites us, if it stirs our deepest curiosity, or if we have to learn because the stakes are high, we pay much more attention. What we absorb sinks in.

The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.

Obama has no way to conceal that Osama was executed in front of his children and wives, who are now under the custody of the authorities of Pakistan, a Muslim country of almost 200 million inhabitants, whose laws have been violated, its national dignity offended, and its religious traditions desecrated.

OK, so what’s the speed of dark?

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.

To rule children by force is the technique of Satan, not of the Savior.

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

Democracy is a daring concept – a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people.

I had this child, and it destroyed my family.

Familiarity breeds contempt – and children.

Everything is clearer when you’re in love.

You always admire what you really don’t understand.

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it’s all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can’t change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.

Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, ‚A house guest,‘ you’re wrong because I have just described my kids.

I have wondered about time all my life.

In the real world, children love me.

I used to live with my grandmother. I used to wonder why the other kids in school went home with their mothers and fathers. I wanted to be the guy that got married. I wanted to be the guy with the children and the white picket fence. I never had that.

I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn’t waste their lives because I didn’t have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

Write in such a way as that you can be readily understood by both the young and the old, by men as well as women, even by children.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.

Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

On every front there are clear answers out there that can make this country stronger, but we’re going to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling. Our job is to make sure that even as we make progress, that we are also giving people a sense of hope and vision for the future.

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

In an interconnected age when opportunistic adversaries can work in tandem to destroy stability and prosperity, our country needs to regain its strategic footing. We need to bring the clarity to our efforts before we lose the confidence of the American people and the support of potential allies.

I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.

Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

Even Gaddafi’s adversaries assure us that he stood out for his intelligence as a student; he was expelled from high-school for his anti-monarchic activities. He managed to enroll in another high-school and later graduated in law at the University of Benghazi at the age of 21.

My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine.

Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.

Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience.

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.

The Information Highway intrigues me because I have always been a newshound; I have always been curious about why people believe what they believe.

Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates.

I really like children to watch my movies.

It’s not going to do any good to land on Mars if we’re stupid.

The eyes of the soul of the multitudes are unable to endure the vision of the divine.

Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.

I often visited a particular plant four or five miles distant, half a dozen times within a fortnight, that I might know exactly when it opened.

I think it is the height of ignorance to believe that the sexual act is an independent function necessary like sleeping or eating. Seeing, therefore, that I did not desire more children, I began to strive after self-control. There was endless difficulty in the task.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

Your children will see what you’re all about by what you live rather than what you say.

I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me ‚understand‘ something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country.