Clinging uncritically to traditional ideas and beliefs often serves to obscure or deny real facts of our life history.

Courage can be just as infectious as fear.

If a mother respects both herself and her child from his very first day onward, she will never need to teach him respect for others.

Genuine feelings are never the product of conscious effort. They are quite simply there, and they are there for a very good reason, even if that reason is not always apparent.

The free expression of resentment against one's parents represents a great opportunity. It provides access to one's true self, reactivates numbed feelings, opens the way for mourning and - with luck - reconciliation.

Child abuse is still sanctioned — indeed, held in high regard — in our society as long as it is defined as child-rearing. It is a tragic fact that parents beat their children in order to escape the emotions from how they were treated by their own parents.

Clinging uncritically to traditional ideas and beliefs often serves to obscure or deny real facts of our life history.