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 often went to bed without supper cause I hated my mother's cooking. So, to go to bed without supper was not a torture to me. If she was gonna hurt me, she'd make me eat.

My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony.

The day after Paul Newman was dead, he was twice as dead.

I really don't like the city anymore. You get pushed and harassed and people grope you. It's too tumultuous. It's too crazy.

Children surviving childhood is my obsessive theme and my life's concern.

I'm not jaded. I never have been jaded. I've always been surprised at my success. I've always enjoyed it.