Parents shouldn't assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly. Kids don't. We do.

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

From their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

I had been reading a fabulous book [The Man Verdi, by Frank Walker] about [Giuseppe] Verdi, whom I adore.

I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness.

All I liked to do when I was a kid was draw. My childhood was like my adult life: drawing pictures with my brother, putting the comics up on the glass window, and tracing the characters onto tracing paper or drawing paper and then coloring them. That and making things was all we ever did.

We're animals. We're violent. We're criminal. And if I've done anything, I've had kids express themselves as they are.