Round Up the Usual Subjects -- Part Two

On Kids

"It is not blindness to think our own child special; it is blindness to think that somebody else's isn't."

"Our children are beings completely invisible to us except through the eyes of hope."



On Optimism

"It can be said of optimism that while sometimes mistaken, it is never sadly mistaken."

"An optimist is someone who believes that good things come in threes -- and cockroaches come in ones."

"How do you tell an optimist that he or she has lived a happy life by mistake?"



On Moms

"There is a time early in life when there seem to be countless reasons for happiness, and then you discover your mom is making them up."

"There is little you achieve whose possibility was not first exaggerated by your mom."

"There is this about a mom's approval -- that the more you know you have it, the more you want to earn it."



On Fate

"Every person born has been chosen by fate from a trillion possibilities. So if you ever wondered what you would do if you won the lottery, you're doing it."



On Skepticism

"There is a mindset that rejects anything that cannot be further explained, including a complete explanation."




On Ingenuity

All I can say is, I'm cashing a lot more checks since I legally changed my name to "Non-Negotiable."




On Aging

"I arrive at age 72 convinced that sometime early in my life there was a briefing that I missed."

"A common disease of middle-age is late-onset pig-headedness."




On Artificial Intelligence

"Someday, all other things being equal, all other equals will be things."



On Letting Ourselves Be Happy

"There is no greater obstacle to happiness than our own better judgment."

"What is our better judgment but our own personal piece of the conventional wisdom, which is always wrong."

"If we can be unaccountably sad, then why insist that happiness have a reason?"


~~ Robert Brault