“We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay.”

“How can we not create a fantasy in our minds when the reality is so hard?”

“Fantasy stories will always be popular, as there are always readers who are willing to escape, freely, to the worlds that the authors create, and spend time with the characters we give life to.”

“Creating fantasy is real work, important work. It’s a hard, cold world we live in, and sometimes we need to escape. Sometimes we need that more than food or water or a roof over our heads.”

“There are certain children who are told they are too sensitive, and there are certain adults who believe sensitivity is a problem that can be fixed in the way that crooked teeth can be fixed and made straight. And when these two come together you get a fairytale, a kind of story with hopelessness in it.I believe there is something in these old stories that does what singing does to words. They have transformational capabilities, in the way melody can transform mood.They can't transform your actual situation, but they can transform your experience of it. We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. I believe we have always done this, used images to stand and understand what otherwise would be intolerable.”

“Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we never were able to do. Through learning we reperceive the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life”