“I was not a lovable child, and I'd grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it'd be a scribble with fangs.”

“I showed the grown ups my masterpiece, and I asked them if my drawing scared them. They answered:"why be scared of a hat?" My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant.”

“I think that I was quite a grown-up child, and I have been a pretty childish adult.”

“I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up: that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived. I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child. . . . that one of the most deeply human, and humane, of these faculties is the power of imagination.”

“My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant.”

“When I was a child I spoke like a child, thought like a child, acted as a child. But now that I am and adult i put my childish ways behind me.”