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

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

The brain is highly structured, but it is also extremely flexible. It's not a blank slate, but it isn't written in stone, either.

The more obsessively we focus on what a particular food is going to do for us, the less healthy we've become. Simple pleasures become complicated.

The largest and most powerful computers are still no match for the smallest and weakest humans.

Scientists learn about the world in three ways: They analyze statistical patterns in the data, they do experiments, and they learn from the data and ideas of other scientists. The recent studies show that children also learn in these ways.

We're in a culture where everything is either consumption or production, so child care is either a very, very bad-paying form of work or a very expensive luxury that you purchase. There isn't a good place in our picture of the world for what caregiving is about. Even teenage babysitters have sort of disappeared from the scene.