Alyisha

“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

“One of the challenges of her [Producer Margy Whitmer's] job was to find practical applications for Fred Rogers's sometimes wacky ideas...He couldn't really visualize what he wanted until he saw something, and then he would know that he didn't want that, or he'd want it changed. The hardest part was that he had such respect for the art crew, their talent, their whimsy, and their wackiness, that it was hard for him to tell them he didn't like something.”
― Maxwell King, The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

“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