The problem is simply this: no one can feel like CEO of his or her life in the presence of the people who toilet trained her and spanked him when he was naughty. We may have become Masters of the Universe, accustomed to giving life and taking it away, casually ordering people into battle or out of their jobs . . . and yet we may still dirty our diapers at the sound of our mommy's whimper or our daddy's growl.

We never really are the adults we pretend to be. We wear the mask and perhaps the clothes and posture of grown-ups, but inside ourskin we are never as wise or as sure or as strong as we want to convince ourselves and others we are. We may fool all the rest of the people all of the time, but we never fool our parents. They can see behind the mask of adulthood. To her mommy and daddy, the empress never has on any clothes--and knows it.

A boy is not free to find a partner of his own as long as he must be the partner to his mother.

The guys who fear becoming fathers don't understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. The end product of child-raising is not the child but the parent.

Why do otherwise sane, competent, strong men, men who can wrestle bears or raid corporations, shrink away in horror at the thought of washing a dish or changing a diaper?

Fidelity is the single most important element in solidly enduring marriages.

No one, however powerful and successful, can function as an adult if his parents are not satisfied with him.