To be a healthy person, you have to be sympathetic to the child you once were and maintain the continuity between you as a child and you as an adult.

I thought that if I were going into old age I would want to do what [Giuseppe] Verdi did, which is to write extraordinary things, and to really find myself.

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

What is the point of it all? Not leaving legacies. But being ripe. Being ripe.

I believe there is no part of our lives, our adult as well as child life, when we're not fantasizing, but we prefer to relegate fantasy to children, as though it were some tomfoolery only fit for the immature minds of the young. Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do.

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

I said anything I wanted because I don't believe in children I don't believe in childhood. I don't believe that there's a demarcation. 'Oh you mustn't tell them that. You mustn't tell them that.' You tell them anything you want. Just tell them if it's true. If it's true you tell them.