I know that if there’s a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart.

I'm getting old. And I'm disappointed in everything just the way old people traditionally, boringly are. That bothers me because is it too traditional? Am I not fighting hard enough? I don't feel the fight. I don't feel it.

There's so much more to a book than just the reading.

I wish you all good things. Live your life, live your life, live your life.

I never thought of Bumble-Ardy in that way. But I still have that same deep feeling for children who are in dire trouble. I see Bumble-Ardy as a lonely, unhappy kid who is doing the very best he can to be in the world, to have a party.

Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don't know. I don't know. I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.

It was a very difficult time. I was working on [umble-Ardy] when my partner and friend was dying of cancer. We set up a room in the house to be like a hospital room. Eugene died, and then I had bypass surgery. I was doing the book to stay sane while all this was going on.