foundational experiences Quotes

Childhood constitutes the most important element in an adult's life, for it is in his early years that a man is made.

Home is the wallpaper above the bed, the family dinner table, the church bells in the morning, the bruised shins of the playground, the small fears that come with dusk, the streets and squares and monuments and shops that constitute one's first universe.

The first thing the boy Garion remembered was the kitchen at Faldor's farm. For all the rest of his life he had a special warm feeling for kitchens and those peculiar sounds and smells that seemed somehow to combine into a bustling seriousness that had to do with love and food and comfort and security and, above all, home. No matter how high Garion rose in life, he never forgot that all his memories began in that kitchen.

That earliest shock in one's life which occurs to all of us; which first makes us think.

I will always pay respect and homage to my early years, because that's what gave me the initial push to go on and do what it is I do. That's where I learned the love and respect for music.

I've got foundation jokes, the ones that got me where I am, so everything I do just builds on top of that.

I'm just hoping my children will get enough of a foundation to remember what it was like before technology, how good that feels. Because I remember.

And the first step, as you know, is always what matters most, particularly when we are dealing with those who are young and tender. That is the time when they are taking shape and when any impression we choose to make leaves a permanent mark.