35 Quotes by Maxwell King

In a later interview, [Junod] noted of longtime cast members: 'In their way, they were strangely kind of vulnerable folks, too. I mean, they...settled in and had their artistic and creative home there....There was an acceptance of limitation there. It wasn't like they were out there fulfilling their own wild ambitions...It was not that at all. It was like they were there because they had found a home there.

And when Stumbaugh died, Rogers was there to speak at the funeral. "He was tenacious about those friendships," said Maggie Kimmel, a University of Pittsburgh professor who worked with and wrote about Fred Rogers.

David Newell--Mr. McFeely--notes that "Fred really wanted people to grow; that was a big word in his vocabulary. He was always growing--growing emotionally, growing educationally. ...

Children are starving for story, the kind that builds on hope, the kind that echos for a lifetime. We need story in our lives, not dreams based on greed.

Academics who've studied Rogers's work often marvel at how young children calm down, pay attention, and learn so much from this television production - and how they remain calm and centered for some time after watching The Neighborhood. Rogers himself put great care into the pacing of the program to help children slow down and steady themselves.

We can't always know what's behind a child's question. But if we let a child know we respect the question, we're letting that child know that we respect him or her. What a powerful way to say, 'I care about you!' - Fred Rogers

Mister Rogers took his viewers on this little journey to show that even in the face of death, things move ahead. That's the essential message as he sits by the fish grave. Rogers never told grieving children that everything will be all right: no such simplistic reassurances. Instead he shared his feelings about death and loss, and the extraordinary truth, reaffirmed repeatedly throughout the program, that life does go on.

In everything he wrote, in all the programming he produced, in the life of caring, kindness, and modesty that he led, he set a very clear example. His legacy lives in the concept of a caring neighborhood where people watch out for one another, no matter where they come from or what they look like.

As he grew older, Rogers struggled to work out a set of responses to the challenges of life that could turn his caring, his belief in love, and his great sensitivity into a life course based not on fragility, but on quiet strength. He found a way to be true to himself that enabled him to build a uniquely thoughtful set of defenses that relied on empathy and sympathy. Ultimately, he developed a powerful authenticity that propelled him to popularity.