Childhood Is A Branch Of Cartography.

There Are No Moments More Painful For A Parent Than Those In Which You Contemplate Your Child's Perfect Innocence Of Some Imminent Pain, Misfortune, Or Sorrow. That Innocence (like Every Kind Of Innocence Children Have) Is Rooted In Their Trust Of You, One That You Will Shortly Be Obliged To Betray; Whether It Is Fair Or Not, Whether You Can Help It Or Not, You Are Always The Ultimate Guarantor Or Destroyer Of That Innocence.

When I'm Writing Solitude Feels Very Good. But When I'm Not Writing It Feels Lonely... Having A Big Family Solves That Problem.

There Was A Sort Of Irony In The Fact That These [superhero] Characters - Many Of Whom In That Period, The Golden Age, Had Been Evolved To Fight The Nazis - Were Themselves Very Much In The Nazi Ideal. The Idea That You Can Solve Problems Through Physical Strength, By Being Stronger And More Dominant And More Powerful - That Is Fascism. I Mean, That's It, That's The Essence Of Fascism. I Don't Think The Creators Of The Superheroes Or The Kids Who Were Reading Them At The Time Were The Slightest Bit Aware Of It.

Rueful, Bittersweet, Funny, Written With Tenderness And Bite, Merrill Feitell's Stories, Like So Many Classic Short Stories, Are Made From The Plain And Painful Stuff Of This World, And Haunted By The Possibility, And The Impossibility, Of A Better One.

My Heart Was Simultaneously Broken And Filled With Lust, I Was Exhausted, And I Loved Every Minute Of It. It Was Strange And Elating To Find Myself For Once The Weaker.