I have told the story I was asked to tell. I have closed it, as so many stories close, with a joining of two people. What is one man's and one woman's love and desire, against the history of two worlds, the great revolutions of our lifetimes, the hope, the unending cruelty of our species? A little thing. But a key is a little thing, next to the door it opens. If you lose the key, the door may never be unlocked. It is in our bodies that we lose or begin our freedom, in our bodies that we accept or end our slavery. So I wrote this book for my friend, with whom I have lived and will die free.

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.

A writer either speaks to adults and bores kids, or speaks to kids and upsets adults.

There is a limited number of plots. There is no limit to the number of stories.

The creative adult is the child who has survived.

The law of evolution is that the strongest survives.

As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope.