“The passion for such children contains no ego motive of anticipated reciprocity; one is choosing against, in the poet Richard Wilbur's phrase, 'loving things for reasons'. You find beauty and hope in the existence, rather than the achievements, of such a child. Most parenthood entails some struggle to change, educate and improve one's children; people with multiple severe disabilities may not become anything else, and there is a compelling purity in parental engagement not with what might or should or will be, but with, simply, what is.”

American writer on politics, culture and psychology

Andrew Solomon is an American writer on politics, culture and psychology. He has 93 quotes on the site and has written widely across major magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, and Travel and Leisure. His work ranges across subjects such as depression, Soviet artists, the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, Libyan politics, and deaf culture. That breadth gives his writing a distinctly public and reflective character, moving between personal and political life, culture, and mental health.