These same experiences make of the sequence of life cycles a generational cycle, irrevocably binding each generation to those that gave it life and to those for whose life it is responsible. Thus, reconciling lifelong generativity and stagnation involves the elder in a review of his or her own years of active responsibility for nurturing the next generations, and also in an integration of earlier-life experiences of caring and of self-concern in relation to previous generations.

You've got to learn to accept the law of life, and face the fact that we disintegrate slowly.

Children love and want to be loved and they very much prefer the joy of accomplishment to the triumph of hateful failure. Do not mistake a child for his symptom.

If life is to be sustained, hope must remain.

Doubt is the brother of shame.

You can actively flee, then, and you can actively stay put.

Adolescents need freedom to choose, but not so much freedom that they cannot, in fact, make a choice.