There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of children.

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

You can start making up any kind of story if you want to.

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

Kids books Grownup books That's just marketing. Books are books.

One of the few graces of getting old - and God knows there are few graces - is that if you've worked hard and kept your nose to the grindstone, something happens: The body gets old but the creative mechanism is refreshed, smoothed and oiled and honed. That is the grace. That is what's happening to me.

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.