Research is always a very necessary part of my process because all of my books to this point have been historical. Time spent in the library adds to one's wealth as a writer or artist.

My advice to writers is: READ! A lot. Then read some more. read, read, read, read!

My "mission", if you can call it that, is to connect with my readers on an emotional level and have them come away with a stronger impression of the basic message in the story I am illustrating.

I have many who keep me going, I am very fortunate in this sense. There is nothing like a child who knows more about your books than you do!

My method is subtraction. I use erasers to make the images in my paintings. You really have to see it to fully get it, but it is basically erasing shapes from a background of paint.

The approach to "building" a story with words and phrases is no different than "building" a painting with brushes and pigments.

I like people. Humanity. My family is a part of my work. They contribute throughout the process with critiques, advice, opinions, etc.

I will always be an artist first. I see my writing as an extension of my illustrating.

You feel your strength in the experience of pain.

Everything did mean something.

I don't want tea, I want justice!

You will know you are in love when it doesn't matter if you sit in heaven or hell with that special someone just as long as they can make you laugh, while you put out the fires.

Love knows all paths, where even gods and cats are blind.

Your most memorable students are in your first classes and your last classes: make your last years the finest of your career.

There was only the cemetery itself, spread out in the moonlight like a soft grey hallucination, a stony wilderness of Victorian melancholy.

I just decided that I didn't want to be in the academic world, because it was [really] too easy for me at the top. But also it wasn't active enough for me.

This knowledge I pursure is the finest pleasure I have ever known. I could no sooner give it up that I could the very air that I breath.

I'm not a part of any organized practices, but I believe heavily on love and the universe and what you give is what you get.