The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

You must create room for the audience to inhabit and relate to the work. You must avoid the trap of making this about you—because, remember, you won’t be the one buying it. In that way, Robert’s insistence on diversity wasn’t coming only from his very real sense of fairness and tolerance. There was a genius business logic to his choices as well: Ea

“He was a terrific listener,” Neuwirth says. “It’s one thing to have good ideas, it’s another to recognize when others do. . . . If there was a pony in your pile of horse manure, he would find it.”

Leonard wanted to ignite children’s imaginations about the world around them, and to inspire their curiosity. There would be plenty of time for them to learn the rough lessons of life, but shouldn’t they first be allowed to develop very special ideas about the world? Wasn’t it his role to catalyse the magic that happens when children read encyclopa

‘Sure David could be mean and aggressive, but he was also capable of being kind, of using restraint, of getting what he wanted in ways that were peaceful. Those were the qualities in him that needed to be affirmed.’