" When Hansel and Gretel stood in the forest and saw the house in the clearing before them , the little hairs at the nape of their necks must have shivered. Their knees must have felt so weak that blinding hunger alone could have propelled them forward. No one was there warn or hold them; their parents, chastened and grieving, were far away. So they ran as fast they could to the house where a woman older than death lived, and they ignore the shivering nape hair and the softness in their knees. A grown man can also be energized by hunger, and any weakness in his knees or irregularity in his heartbeat will disappear if he thinks his hunger is about to be assuaged. Especially if the object of his craving is not gingerbread or chewy gumdrops, but gold. "

― Toni Morrison , Song of Solomon