“Our own egos are so fragile we cannot bear to give our lives to the raising of children only to have them become ordinary people. There, I said it. The worst thing a 21st-century child of interesti...”

“Did you notice there arent any average kids anymoreonly Gifted and Disposable?”

“We fluff them and fold them and nudge them and enhance them and bind them and break them and embellish them beyond measure; then, as we drive them up to the college interviews that theyve heard sin...”

“I cant hear Gods voice for my kids, but I can watch and listen and pray and adjust and try not to screw up whatever He has planned for their lives. And although I cant make them listen to God, or e...”

“America is a young country, young and brash and prone to errors. Like teenagers. For all our inherent goodness, weve been cursed with bright, shiny object disease and we dont want a cure. Not now. ...”

“When God says hold up, wait, pray, its not your time yet, our entire bodies rebel, legs kicking and flailing like some overturned dung beetle certain that if we try hard enough we might be able to ...”

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't li...”

“I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.”

“Fear is all in the mind”

“A grit mind strengthens all of your strengths.”

“...grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and disappointment, and learn to tell the difference between low-level goals that should be abandoned...”

“You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I'm telling you that's a pretty illusion.”

“Helicopter parents. Before I started at Pirriwee Public, I thought it was an exaggeration, this thing about parents being overly involved with their kids. I mean, my mum and dad loved me, they were...”