Young children are naturally so philosophical. They ask: 'What is real? What is truth?' They have to learn it; they don't automatically know it. To them, it's a game. You can study this for years in college, and yet you probably asked it when you were four or five years old.

I wish that every baby everywhere could land in a family that wanted that baby as much as we want ours.

In many of my books, I explore the ways in which grandparents or other older persons are shaped by the young, and the young are shaped by the old, in an evolving dance.

What exactly did people do when they had all the time in the world and could do whatever they liked?

Life is like a bowl of spaghetti. Every once in a while, you get a meatball.

I tried. Can't do it. Brain's empty.

Man needs bread and hyacinths: one to feed the body, and one to feed the soul.