32 Quotes by Emma Walton Hamilton

My background is in arts education and we know, absolutely for a fact, that there is no better way for kids to learn critical thinking skills, communication skills, things like empathy and tolerance. This is true across every boundary, across cultural boundaries, across socioeconomic, it's a great leveler in terms of unifying our world.

My husband, Steve Hamilton - an actor/producer and co-Director of the Southampton Playwriting Conference - and I had been working in the theatre in New York for many years.

The arts are the most uniquely suited to provide young people with critical-thinking skills, problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration, empathy and tolerance and compassion, looking at the other point of views.

Sometime in my 20s, a wise mentor said something that dramatically changed my outlook and that has stayed with me ever since. She told me to 'wear the mantle with dignity and pride.'

When I was three years old, a nanny took me shopping and I saw large cut-outs of Mary Poppins in the store and yelled, 'That's mummy!' These women walked by and said, 'Oh how cute. That little girl thinks that Mary Poppins is her mum.'

With my mother, Julie Andrews Edwards, I've authored such children's books as the 'Dumpy the Dump Truck' series, 'Dragon: Hound of Honor,' 'The Great American Mousical,' 'Simeon's Gift' and 'Thanks to You: Wisdom from Mother and Child.'

My parentage set me up to want to make a life of my own in the arts, but also contributed to my feeling a certain amount of pressure, especially in my early years, to figure out who I was and how to make my own mark.

My mom's coping mechanism was to be strong and resilient. She is very compassionate and nonjudgmental.

Yeah, I think the arts and literature have always been irrevocably connected. Because if you think about it, every film script, every play, every song starts as words on the page before it is ever performed or filmed or sung.