Most children - I know I did when I was a kid - fantasize another set of parents. Or fantasize no parents. They don't tell their real parents about that - you don't want to tell Mom and Dad. Kids lead a very private life. And I was a typical child, I think. I was a liar.

Because love is so enormous, the only thing you can think of doing is swallowing the person that you love entirely.

Oh, I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness. You went to the movies then, you saw two movies and a short. When Mickey Mouse came on the screen and there was his big head, my sister said she had to hold onto me. I went berserk.

I don't write for children. I write, and somebody says, 'That's for children.'

And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

And it's one of the sexiest things you will ever read of how slow you should take the peach. Don't rush it.

It was inconceivable to me as a child that I would be an adult. I mean, one assumed that it would happen, but obviously it didn't happen, or if it did, it happened when your back was turned, and then suddenly you were there. So I couldn't have thought about it much.