No one really understood music unless he was a scientist, her father had declared, and not just a scientist, either, oh, no, only the real ones, the theoreticians, whose language was mathematics. She had not understood mathematics until he had explained to her that it was the symbolic language of relationships. "And relationships," he had told her, "contained the essential meaning of life."

What is a neglected child? He is a child not planned for, not wanted. Neglect begins, therefore, before he is born.

There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream -- whatever that dream might be.

Fatalism is a false premise. What will be is not necessarily what must be.

to know how to read is to light a lamp in the mind, to release the soul from prison, to open a gate to the universe." from Pavilion of Women page 292

If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.

It is better not to say "lend." There is only giving.