Kids are watching us. I experience it every single day. They hang on my every word, what I wear, what I say.

Sisters, do you realize the breadth and scope of your influence when you speak those things that come to your heart and mind as directed by the Spirit?

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

Being a kid’s not easy. You’re transforming and becoming a human being. At some point, you have everyone taking care of you, and then, all of a sudden, you’re out in the world.

The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.

It’s sometimes comical to hear the younger generation ask their peers to repeat themselves.

Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said.

Children always turn to the light.

It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one’s children will become than for the children one’s ‚mature‘ critics often are.

If you’re really satisfied with your position on something, you just say, ‚Hey;‘ you just very calmly present something.

When I came to Delhi and noticed an insider view, I felt what it was, and I was surprised to see it. It seemed as if dozens of separate governments are running at the same time in one main government. It appeared that everyone has its own fiefdom.

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one’s never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.

It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.

Our schools and colleges are turning out people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.

You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

Children make your life important.

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.

I’ve always felt heroic about my life… As a child, I remember little girls in the playground moaning about how boys could do more than they could. I didn’t think that was the case at all. My parents didn’t treat me as a girl.

I am not one who – who flamboyantly believes in throwing a lot of words around.

I talk to myself all the time. Just make sure you answer.

You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

You send a boy to school in order to make friends – the right sort.

In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.

My husband and I had to raise five of my younger brothers and sisters. They lived with us. We sent them to school.

I watched the Indy 500, and I was thinking that if they left earlier they wouldn’t have to go so fast.

I want to negotiate what I’m worth. I want to put my analytics forward, man-to-man, and to be like, ‚This is what I’m owed now. Pay me.‘ And then we can talk.

God looks after children, animals and idiots.

The drawing teacher has this problem of communicating how to draw by osmosis and not by instruction, while the physics teacher has the problem of always teaching techniques, rather than the spirit, of how to go about solving physical problems.

Before I lost my voice, it was slurred, so only those close to me could understand, but with the computer voice, I found I could give popular lectures. I enjoy communicating science. It is important that the public understands basic science, if they are not to leave vital decisions to others.

I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.

To be clear: we have fights and problems like any other couple.

Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.

Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.

Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.

The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.

The issues a president faces are not black and white, and cannot be boiled down into 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or the tendency to lash out.

Remember that the essence of authority is that people willingly follow your lead.

Crowded classrooms and half-day sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest national resource – the minds of our children.

When you have two busy kids running around the house, returning e-mails is a task, let alone surfing the web.

When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out.

When you’re around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.

Age merely shows what children we remain.

When I was young, an eccentric uncle decided to teach me how to lie. Not, he explained, because he wanted me to lie, but because he thought I should know how it’s done so I would recognise when I was being lied to.

Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn’t interest you, don’t do it – I would have made a terrible mother.

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

I looked the people of Louisiana in the eye and told them exactly what I thought in terms that normal people use.

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

We make the Sabbath a delight when we teach the gospel to our children.

All our words from loose using have lost their edge.

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.

Money has a language of its own.

The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.