Ineffective or weak brain connections are pruned in much the same way a gardener would prune a tree or bush, giving the plant a desired shape.

I'm afraid the parenting advice to come out of developmental psychology is very boring: pay attention to your kids and love them.

Because we imagine, we can have invention and technology. It's actually play, not necessity, that is the mother of invention.

What's it like to be a baby? It's like being in love in Paris for the first time after you've had three double espressos.

Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more fundamental.

The more obsessively we focus on what a particular food is going to do for us, the less healthy we've become. Simple pleasures become complicated.

The brain is highly structured, but it is also extremely flexible. It's not a blank slate, but it isn't written in stone, either.

Animals are certainly more sophisticated than we used to think. And we shouldn't lump together animals as a group. Crows and chimps and dogs are all highly intelligent in very different ways.

The largest and most powerful computers are still no match for the smallest and weakest humans.

Babies and young children are like the research and development division of the human species, and we grown-ups are production and marketing.

What teenagers want most of all are social rewards, especially the respect of their peers.

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

She explains that often the people who mean the most to us have to be left behind because they cannot follow us along our destined path.

Home is where we know - and are known - through accumulated experience.

I never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.

I'm no politician but I do feel that a lot of damage was done because of misguided principals and America is still suffering from it.

When I hear Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come', it frustrates me because no matter how hard I try, I can never be that good.

I'm a normal human being. I don't have any desire to change my body as a result of having had two kids. That's a good thing, isn't it?

To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder.

If you think the memories of the past too much, you will miss creating the new ones!

I'm prone to a more depressed outlook on life.