Every child needs nature. Not just the ones with parents who appreciate nature. Not only those of a certain economic class or culture or set of abilities. Every child.

The pleasure of being alive is brought into sharper focus when you need to pay attention to staying alive.

It's easy to blame the nature-deficit disorder on the kids' or the parents' back, but they also need the help of urban planners, schools, libraries and other community agents to find nature that's accessible.

Mothers tend to be more direct. Fathers talk to other fathers about their kids more metaphorically. It's a different way of communication.

We do not raise our children alone.... Our children are also raised by every peer, institution, and family with which they come in contact. Yet parents today expect to be blamed for whatever results occur with their children, and they expect to do their parenting alone.

We can conserve energy and tread more lightly on the Earth while we expand our culture's capacity for joy.

We cannot protect something we do not love, we cannot love what we do not know, and we cannot know what we do not see. Or hear. Or sense.