I've always thought it would be fun to update "Hansel and Gretel." I'd have these white parents in the suburbs with an income of fifty or sixty thousand dollars. Daddy loses his job, and the wicked stepmother says, "We could get along, we could keep our Mastercharge, if you'd just get rid of those shitty kids." Finally the father hires a limo and tells the driver, "Drop 'em off on Lenox Avenue in Harlem at two in the morning." These two little white kids land there. They're menaced. And this supposedly nice black lady says, "Would you like some candy?"

He had a massive stroke. He died with his tie on. Do you think that could be our generation's equivalent of that old saying about dying with your boots on?

When the reader hears strong echoes of his or her own life and beliefs, he or she is apt to become more invested in the story.

I always like to see enlightened parents like that; it gives me hope for the future.

Let’s talk, you and I. Let’s talk about fear. The house is empty as I write this; a cold February rain is falling outside. It’s night. Sometimes when the wind blows the way it’s blowing now, we lose the power. But for now it’s on, and so let’s talk very honestly about fear. Let’s talk very rationally about moving to the rim of madnessand... and perhaps over the edge.

sometimes an accident can be an unhappy womans best friend

People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk.