Thomas

“If he is able to leave his room (or follow you out of your shared room), the problem becomes a little harder. No matter how much he yells, how strong he is, or how well he can climb, you must be stronger than he is. If he ends up in control instead of you, the only lesson he will learn is that he can always get his way. Thus, if he starts coming out of his room when you refuse to keep going in, you may have to put up a gate. (You may have to do that even if he sleeps in your bed, if he follows you out of the room.) If he can kick down the gate, you may have to screw it into the door frame. If he can climb over it, you may have to put up a double gate—two gates, one above the other—until he agrees to stop climbing. If he can get over a double gate, you may have to start closing the door. Do whatever it takes to enforce the rule, just as you would if he tried to play with matches. You must win because it will actually be scary for him if you do not. Only when you have successfully settled the issue will he see that you are really in charge; only then can he stop trying to find ways to outsmart you; only then can he stop worrying about whether you will respond supportively or angrily; and only then can he see that you are really taking care of him. Finally, then, he can relax, with no job to do except to go to sleep, and the matter is solved.”
― Richard Ferber, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

“Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.”
― Otto von Bismarck

“Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.”
― William T. Sherman, Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman