Grown-ups desperately need to feel safe, and then they project onto the kids. But what none of us seem to realize is how smart kids are. They don’t like what we write for them, what we dish up for them, because it’s vapid, so they’ll go for the hard words, they’ll go for the hard concepts, they’ll go for the stuff where they can learn something. Not didactic things, but passionate things.

I don't know how to write a children's book.

We're animals. We're violent.

I wanted to be acknowledged as an artist, not just some kiddie-book artist.

I write books that seem more suitable for children, and that's OK with me. They are a better audience and tougher critics. Kids tell you what they think, not what they think they should think.

I don't want to lose hope.

The magic of childhood is the strangeness of childhood — the uniqueness that makes us see things that other people don't see.