Perhaps because my relationship with my father went through such a long, bumpy time, it's been very important for me to work to try to keep lines of communication open between my sons and myself to try to avoid my father's mistakes. At least if you're making mistakes, make different mistakes.

People would come and threaten them. And they would respond by putting the book in the window. Behind that, the publishers, many of whom were menaced and receiving anonymous phone calls of the very menacing kind and so, almost everybody - not everybody, but almost everybody held the line.

That's the trouble with you sad-city types: a place has to be miserable and dull as ditchwater before you believe it's real.

My parents gave me the gift of irreligion, of growing up without bothering to ask people what gods they held dear, assuming that in fact, like my parents, they weren't interested in gods, and that this uninterest was 'normal.' You may argue that the gift was a poisoned chalice, but even if so, that's a cup from which I'd happily drink again.

He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.

The USA approach looks like bullying because it is.

Too many people had spent too long demonizing or totemizing me to listen seriously to what I had to say.