We live in a world filled with language. Language imparts identity, meaning, and perspective to our human community. Writers are either polluters or part of the clean-up team. Just as the language of power and greed has the potential to destroy us, the language of reason and empathy has the power to save us. Writers can inspire a kinder, fairer, more beautiful world, or invite selfishness, stereotyping, and violence. Writers can unite people or divide them.

we are a small, interconnected world; that we are all safe or none of us are; that we are all well cared for or all at risk.

When one of us tells the truth, he makes it easier for all of us to open our hearts to our pain and that of others.

Girls have long been evaluated on the basis of appearance and caught in myriad double binds: achieve, but not too much, be polite,but be yourself, be feminine and adult; be aware of our cultural heritage, but don't comment on the sexism. . . . Girls are trained to be less than who they really are. They are trained to be what the culture wants of its young women, not what they themselves want to become.

One important reason to stay calm is that calm parents hear more. Low-key, accepting parents are the ones whose children keep talking.

Language imparts identity, meaning, and perspective to our human condition. Writers are either polluters or part of the cleanup.

Adolescence is when girls experience social pressure to put aside their authentic selves and to display only a small portion of their gifts.