It wasn't until I was an adult reader that I began to fathom the influence of fairy tales on writers I was in love with over the years, from Louisa May Alcott to Bernard Malamud to John Cheever to Anne Frank to Joy Williams.

Fairy tales are the skeletons of story, perhaps. Reading them often provides an uneasy sensation—a gnawing familiarity—that comforting yet supernatural awareness of living inside a story.

Fairy tales represent hundreds of years of stories based on thousands of years of stories told by hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of tellers.

People tend to think of fairy tales as 'archetypal.' They are also extremely sensual, something which translates well over the ages.

Thankfully, the farmers understand my request that the children not be allowed to peer through the windows at me.
It would be alarming for them to see me with their dolls, to see me using the knife on their faces. There are some things children never should see.

Mother didn't understand that children aren't frightened by stories; that their lives are full of far more frightening things than those contained in fairy tales.