I don't believe in an afterlife but I still fully expect to see my brother again.

Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.

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.

There are certain pieces of music that are always attached to certain books.

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

You can't get rid of evil. We can't, and I feel that so intensely.

I know there are supposedly happy people in this world. I never believed it, but I take it for granted. God knows, they're all on television.