A Message to Children Who Have Read This Book - When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: a stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY.

The more risks you allow your children to make, the better they learn to look after themselves.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

So, please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookcase on the wall.

But it is impossible to replace a person one has loved to distraction.

For me, the pleasure of writing comes with inventing stories.

What a fortunate fellow I am, I kept telling myself. Nobody has ever had such a lovely time as this!