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.

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

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

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.