The abused children are alone with their suffering, not only within the family, but also within themselves. They cannot crate a place in their own soul where they could cry their beart out.

The more we idealize the past and refuse to acknowledge our childhood sufferings, the more we pass them on unconsciously to the next generation.

The victimization of children is nowhere forbidden; what is forbidden is to write about it.

What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.

Wherever I look, I see signs of the commandment to honor one's parents and nowhere of a commandment that calls for the respect of a child.

For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath.

The reason why parents mistreat their children has less to do with character and temperament than with the fact that they were mistreated themselves and were not permitted to defend themselves.

Disrespect is the weapon of the weak

All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to articulate their needs and feelings for their self-protection

Genuine feelings cannot be produced, nor can they be eradicated. We can only repress them, delude ourselves, and deceive our bodies. The body sticks to the facts.

We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.

The only activity a cynic will find contagious is yawning, that is, with other people, at other people.

To be willing to succeed greatly in life, is to clearly understand that massive success comes with no shortcut.

Ambition distorts even memory itself. John Quincy Adams

Most of the common infections - colds, flu, diarrhea - you get environmentally transmitted either in the air or on surfaces you touch. I think people under-rate surfaces.

I just have to be me.

It is not given to our weak intellects to understand the steps of Providence as they occur: we comprehend them only as we look back upon them in the far-distant past.

When you consider what a chance women have to poison their husbands, it's a wonder there isn't more of it done

The first person besides my mother who believed in me was a man whose last name I never knew. He was my boss, the manager of Swenson's Ice Cream shop.

The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness, and of a freedom almost forgotten.

Entertainment has this way of resetting itself.