Alyisha

“Rogers's embrace of reality also included breaking one of the established rules of television, a prohibition against footage that is essentially empty. While Sesame Street used fast pacing and quick-cut technique to excite and engage young viewers and keep them glued to the screen, Fred Rogers deliberately headed in the opposite direction, creating his own quiet, slow-paced, thoughtful world, which led to real learning in his view...Silence - Fred's willingness, as a producer and as a person, to embrace quiet, inactivity, and empty space -- and his calm demeanor were completely unexpected...They were qualities that captivated children and their parents.”
― Maxwell King, The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

“As they [Joan Rivers and Fred Rogers] wind down, Rogers sings...a special rendition of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," by King Friday, who substitutes hilariously pretentious "kingly" lyrics of his own, rowing "ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically; life is but an illusion.”
― Maxwell King, The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread.”
― John Muir

“Academics who've studied Rogers's work often marvel at how young children calm down, pay attention, and learn so much from this television production - and how they remain calm and centered for some time after watching The Neighborhood. Rogers himself put great care into the pacing of the program to help children slow down and steady themselves.”
― Maxwell King, The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers