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

I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence.

I'm not jaded. I never have been jaded. I've always been surprised at my success. I've always enjoyed it.

Then one day my sister abandoned me at the 1939 World's Fair, and that incident is the essence of In the Night Kitchen. I was standing there with hundreds of other people waving back at the little midgets dressed like bakers when I turned around and my sister was gone! The next thing I know I'm screaming and crying and policemen are taking me to a big place with tons of kids who had all been abandoned like me. At least I was old enough to give them a name and an address.

Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do.

To get a child's trust - you may know or not - is a very hard thing to do. They're so used to not believing adults - because adults tell tales and lies all the time.

My brother, who was older, was the gifted one, much more talented than I.