Young children seem to be learning who to share this toy with and figure out how it works, while adolescents seem to be exploring some very deep and profound questions: how should this society work? How should relationships among people work? The exploration is: who am I, what am I doing?

I think, at the end of the century we'll have a generation of parents and a generation of children who won't have had the deep satisfactions of being parents and being children in the way that they might have and are going to spend a lot of time fretting and worrying and being hovered over for nothing. The question isn't so much "What will happen in the long run?" but "What's happening to people's lives right now?"

What's it like to be a baby? It's like being in love in Paris for the first time after you've had three double espressos.

What teenagers want most of all are social rewards, especially the respect of their peers.

Being a grandmother is a wonderful thing, so my advice is skip the children. Go straight to the grandchildren.

I'm afraid the parenting advice to come out of developmental psychology is very boring: pay attention to your kids and love them.

Young children seem to be learning who to share this toy with and figure out how it works, while adolescents seem to be exploring some very deep and profound questions: how should this society work? How should relationships among people work? The exploration is: who am I, what am I doing?