Why do children want to grow up? Because they experience their lives as constrained by immaturity and perceive adulthood as a condition of greater freedom and opportunity. But what is there today, in America, that very poor and very rich adolescents want to do but cannot do? Not much: they can do drugs, have sex, make babies, and get money (from their parents, crime, or the State). For such adolescents, adulthood becomes synonymous with responsibility rather than liberty. Is it any surprise that they remain adolescents?

Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.

Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.

Man cannot long survive without air, water, and sleep. Next in importance comes food. And close on its heels, solitude.

A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power.

We should pledge ourselves to the proposition that the irresponsible life is not worth living.

Classifying thoughts, feelings and behaviors as diseases is a logical and semantic error, like classifying whale as fish.