I don't think that children, if left to themselves, feel that there is an author behind a book, a somebody who wrote it. Grown-ups have fostered this quotient of identity, particularly teachers. Write a letter to your favorite author and so forth. When I was a child I never realized that there were authors behind books. Books were there as living things, with identities of their own.

When I was a child, love to me was what the sea is to a fish: something you swim in while you are going about the important affairs of life.

I was brought up Irish, where there was room for my own private world.

There are worlds beyond worlds and times beyond times, all of them true, all of them real, and all of them (as children know) penetrating each other.

You can ask me anything you like about my work, but I'll never talk about myself.

The Irish, as a race, have the oral tradition in their blood. A direct question to them is an anathema, but in other cases, a mere syllable of a hero's name will elicit whole chapters of stories.

If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads.