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 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.

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

If life is so critical, if Anne Frank could die, if my friend could die, children were as vulnerable as adults, and that gave me a secret purpose to my work, to make them live. Because I wanted to live. I wanted to grow up.

I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more.

[Drawing] and making things was all we ever did. My brother and I built the entire New York World's Fair of 1939 in miniature out of wax. The floor of our room was covered with little waxen buildings. Nobody else could come in.

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