Alison Gopnik

We say that children are bad at paying attention, but we really mean that they're bad at not paying attention - they easily get distracted by anything interesting.

The radio was an improvement on the telegraph but it didn't have the same exponential, transformative effect.

Something like reading depends a lot on just having people around you who talk to you and read you books, more than sitting down and, say, doing a reading drill when you're 3 or 4 years old.

It took me realizing that a broken heart has never actually killed anyone to find the courage to ask for what I want, in just about every situation. That was part of my own growing up.

I'm interested in the psychological exploration of human nature, and it just happens to come in the form of film-making.

As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short.