They Know Everything

We've educated children to think that spontaneity is inappropriate.  Children are willing to expose themselves to experiences.  We aren't.  Grownups always say they protect their children, but they're really protecting themselves.  Besides, you can't protect children.  They know everything.

-- Maurice Bernard Sendak (1928 - 2012), American writer and illustrator of children's literature, as quoted in "The Paternal Pride of Maurice Sendak" by Bernard Holland, in The New York Times (8 November 1987)