The radio was an improvement on the telegraph but it didn't have the same exponential, transformative effect.

Some people say that parents don't matter, and that's not true at all. The irony is that we pay attention to all these things that don't matter, and not to what does matter, such as parents having enough resources to provide an environment where their children have both security and freedom.

Because we imagine, we can have invention and technology. It's actually play, not necessity, that is the mother of invention.

If you just got enough expertise and enough special techniques and read up enough, then you could shape a child into the kind of adult you wanted. There's almost this kind of competitive enterprise. That picture is the picture I think people often imply when they use the word "parenting".

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

Children are the most amazing thing in the universe, as far as I'm concerned. If you're worrying about how it's going to turn out, you aren't experiencing that day-to-day satisfaction of being with these incredible, extraordinary creatures. Every single one of them is the most incredible, extraordinary creature that you're ever going to want to see. I think the joy of having that deep relationship - that's the core of what being a parent is.

We don't measure the quality of our other relationships by how well the other person turns out, for instance whether my husband is a better person after 10 years than he was when I first met him.