She could not have been born gray. Her
color, her color of brown, was an essential part of her, not an accident. Her anger, timidity, brashness, gentleness, all were elements of her mixed being, her mixed
nature, dark and clear right through, like Baltic amber. She could not exist in the gray people's world. She had not been born.

I have no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary.

Any parent wants the best for their children. I am not going to make a choice for my child on the basis of what is the politically correct thing to do.

Have faith that your child's brain is an evolving planet that rotates at its own speed. It will naturally be attracted to or repel certain subjects.

And although the discipline of Catholic schools does not permit open manifestations of racism, there were times when it was made very clear you were not expected to have intellectual achievement because black people were supposed to have smaller brains and all of that.

Unless indoctrinated, a child is too logical to understand discrimination.

We ought not to teach to little children, as a known fact, that which is not a known fact.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

I would rather have a gay child. If you have a gay son, you know he's not gonna be shooting up his high school. That would get in the way of yearbook.

Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely.

If a baby really has no awareness of himself and is totally thing-directed and at the same time all his states of mind are projected onto things, our second paradox makes sense: on the one hand, thought in babies can be viewed as pure accommodation or exploratory movements, but on the other this very same thought is only one, long, completely autistic waking dream.

It (the fetus) is strongly aware of your feelings toward it. At times the personality traits that it had earlier color this perception. It pushes these aside impatiently. It has mental images of its own probable future, and parts of it do become frightened at times, to relinquish old adult powers for an infant's helplessness.

I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children.

The baby looks at things all day without winking; that is because his eyes are not focused on any particular object. He goes without knowing where he is going, and stops without knowing what he is doing. He merges himself within the surroundings and moves along with it. These are the principles of mental hygiene.