Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.

A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.

—P.J. O'Rourke

Never fight an inanimate object.

—P.J. O'Rourke

Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.

—P.J. O'Rourke

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

—Harry S. Truman

Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.

—John Ruskin

Children have never been good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

—James Baldwin

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, avoiding our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.

—Garrison Keillor

Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child's world and thus a world event.

—Gaston Bachelard