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.'

Emma Walton Hamilton Quotes