The closest friends I made all through life have been people who also grew up close to a loved and loving grandmother or grandfather.

If they learn easily, they are penalized for being bored when they have nothing to do; if they excel in some outstanding way, they are penalized as being conspicuously better than the peer group. The culture tries to make the child with a gift into a one-sided person, to penalize him at every turn, to cause him trouble in making friends and to create conditions conducive to the development of a neurosis. Neither teachers, the parents of other children, nor the child peers will tolerate a Wunderkind.

If the future is to remain open and free, we need people who can tolerate the unknown, who will not need the support of completely worked out systems or traditional blueprints from the past.

Life is in one of its smoother phases ... I've no responsibilities in the world except friends and students and cherishing the life of the world -- and the belief that there is enough love to go round.

I had no reason to doubt that brains were suitable for a woman.

One characteristic of Americans is that they have no toleration at all of anybody putting up with anything. We believe that whatever is going wrong ought to be fixed.

Maleness in America is not absolutely defined; it has to be kept and re-earned every day, and one essential element in the definition is beating women in every game that both sexes play.