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Children are far more interesting to work with than grownups. They're incredibly honest. They'll tell you exactly what they think.

The problem is that too many adults think their kids' lives are simple, or they try to make their lives simple, when their emotional lives are just as complicated as ours. They might have a few less tools to deal with it because they're young, but the emotions are all the same, and the subject matter is all the same.

When I was a child, I did always feel that people were hiding things, and that they weren't expressing their true feelings. When adults are too complicated, and cover their emotions with layers of well-intentioned subterfuge, the child isn't seeing reality clearly enough and gets upset.

As I get older and I see all my friends starting to have children, I see them have different reactions to the material that was probably not of great interest to them when they were younger, because they're re-experiencing it through their kids.

Before I had kids, I thought you should never lie to a kid. But now I've had them, I realize you almost lie to them by definition, because if you're trying to summarize something for your 1-year-old, you put it in very simple terms. You only gradually complicate the explanation as they get older.

It's only when the kids are in their late twenties that families really face up to what they are.

To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.

Young people are just as attracted to the truth as they are convenience and expediency.

Sometimes random things that you wouldn't think mean anything mean so much to them. With kids, you can say, 'Let's go pick some flowers' or 'There's a snail. Let's investigate that.'

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.