When people are rushed, they're stressed and you greatly increase the likelihood of being punitive and unilateral just because you're trying to grasp control.

No kid should be getting three or four hours of homework a night. There's no breathing time, there's no family time, there are just extracurriculars and homework and then go to bed.

Challenging behavior is just a signal, the fever, the means by which the kid is communicating that he or she is having difficulty meeting an expectation.

It's a whole lot more productive to be in problem-solving mode than it is to be in behavior modification mode.

We have forgotten that those skills on the more positive side of human nature have to be taught, have to be modeled, have to be practiced.

My advice to educators is collaborate with parents; they know a lot about their kids.

If we're being unilateral, then communication does not happen, the relationship does not happen.

If a solution isn't mutually satisfactory, it's not going to stick.

The idea that we can take this lump of clay and mold it into a form of our choosing is absolutely ludicrous.

Solutions can't be imposed. That just fosters resentment.

Parents are much more likely to be attuned to what they don't like than they are to the expectations that the kid is having difficulty meeting.

Let the change begin with your choices this very moment.

Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.

This is a little off subject, but I'm interested in those cases where someone is barking up the wrong tree, or misapplying their talent.

The biggest Russian problem - not all Russian jerks have moved to the US and UK yet.

When someone criticizes you, it defines who they are, not who you are.

All things are in fate, yet all things are not decreed by fate.

People often ask me how I make things funny. I don't make things funny.

Most of my contemporary grant-getters are now doing something other than painting.

O wind, a-blowing all day long, O wind, that sings so loud a song!

I can't lie and say there are no bad writers. Sorry, but there are lots of bad writers.