Inside all of us is... hope. Inside all of us is... fear. Inside all of us is... adventure. Inside all of us is a wild thing.

Children are tough, though we tend to think of them as fragile. They have to be tough. Childhood is not easy. We sentimentalize children, but they know what's real and what's not. They understand metaphor and symbol. If children are different from us, they are more spontaneous. Grown-up lives have become overlaid with dross.

I did not know how to paint a mural. I did not know how to prepare the surface. There was nobody from the Renaissance around who could advise me, and I did the best I could.

My father belonged to a Jewish social club.

I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets. The war took care of that for me. You know, I was brought up strictly kosher, but I - it made no sense to me. It made no sense to me what was happening. So nothing of it means anything to me. Nothing. Except these few little trivial things that are related to being Jewish. ... You know who my gods are, who I believe in fervently? Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson - she's probably the top - Mozart, Shakespeare, Keats. These are wonderful gods who have gotten me through the narrow straits of life.

I don't believe in things literally for children. That's a reduction.

Dreams raise the emotional level of what I'm doing at the moment.