Quotes from Richard Eyre

Balance is the enemy of art.

Governments have always been wary of the arts because they're wayward and ambiguous and because they deal with feelings rather than facts.

I'm wary of artistic directors who say, 'Here is my vision', because it's empirical. Basically it's about who you work with and what plays you put on; the vision comes out of that.

I've always argued, unsuccessfully, that there's no point in giving money to the arts unless you educate people in them.

Everything people say about grandparenthood is true - it is pleasure without responsibility. It is unquestioned love.

Naming a baby is an act of poetry, for many people the only creative moment of their lives.

Naming a baby is an act of poetry, for many people the only creative moment of their lives.

The principle of acting in good faith is at the heart of decent work.

The arts are weapons of understanding and weapons of happiness.

I envy the happiness of others... I envy the sense of belonging... I seem always to be remaking myself.

A place makes a deep impression on you when you're young. It lives with you. It's like your childhood. It fertilises the imagination.

I believe there is a relationship between having an interest in the arts and the behaviour of society as a whole. Some politicians find it difficult that the arts is a weapon of happiness... Politics is often about deprivation rather than the opening up of ideas and nourishing creative endeavour.

I sort of feel that climate change will be solved by science. I just feel instinctively that we will find a way of saving ourselves. But I am less confident that we won't destroy ourselves in other ways.

Resolution, like responsibility, is a product of ownership, and kids can't resolve a conflict until they figure out how they contributed to it.

This sense of entitlement contributes mightily to sloppiness, to low incentive, to boredom, to bad choices, to instant gratification, to constant demands for more, and to all kinds of addictions (including the addiction to technology).

Entitlement is a double- edged sword (or a double-jawed trap) for kids. On one edge it gives kids all that they don't need—indulgence, dullness, conceit, and laziness; and on the backswing, it takes from them everything they do need—motivation, inde- pendence, inventiveness, pride, responsibility, and a chance to really work for things and to build their own sense of fulfill- ment and self-esteem.

In the name of love, we give our kids ? indulgence rather than consequences; ? instant rather than delayed gratification; ? laxness rather than discipline; ? dependence rather than independence; ? and entitlement rather than responsibility.

Give your family greater depth, greater permanence, greater individuality, and give your kids a bigger identity and a bigger sense of inclusion and belonging. This is how you give them real ownership and equity in their own family!

Of course, ownership of education is about much more than grades. Helping children to love learning itself, and to see education as a process of self-discovery and of recognizing their aptitudes and gifts so they can build on them for their college major and their career—these are the real measurements of educational success and the real areas where we want our children to feel equity. So our task is helping kids to feel ownership

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! William Wordsworth - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

All macro entities and institutions in the private, public, and voluntary sectors ultimately depend on the basic unit of families and thus should strongly support, financially and otherwise, well-conceived efforts to preserve and strengthen families and micro solutions.

we parents give our kids things instead of time, spoiling them as we add fuel to the entitlement flame.

I believe there is a relationship between having an interest in the arts and the behaviour of society as a whole. Some politicians find it difficult that the arts is a weapon of happiness... Politics is often about deprivation rather than the opening up of ideas and nourishing creative endeavour.

The arts are weapons of understanding and weapons of happiness.