Stories come to me in mysterious ways, more like dreams than reasoned creations.

Picture books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older.

A lot of my characters are underdogs or sad or lonely, but I had a comfortable, golden sort of childhood.

You can never have 'equality' between two things that are not equal by definition. And so, for example, you can have equality among 'people', but not between 'men' and 'women'.

Maurice Sendak is the daddy of them all when it comes to picture books - the words, the rhythm, the psychology, the design.

As a boy, I devoured comics but never saw what we now describe as a picture book.

Never forget that children are at the heart of everything we do. Respect them, listen to them, talk to them as equals, and care about them.

I'm impressed by the way some illustrators develop their images on computers, but it's too late for me to start, and I'm still in love with paper and paint and pencils.

After art college, I got a job as a medical illustrator, and I was pretty good. I had to imagine what was going on in the operations because the photographs just showed a mess.

When I was a boy, I was a worrier, and so was my son, Joe. I used to tell him that worrying meant he had an imagination and that one day he'd be pleased.

Inspiring passion in children for books, and the world of imagination and creativity fuelled by them, is a fundamental reason for why the Children's Laureate post exists.

Stop trying to be a magician. The past won’t come back. It likes its safety in memory.

The fear of failure is a liability.

Trying to understand man without recognizing him as imago Dei is like trying to understand a bas-relief without recognizing it as a carving.

Life can sometime be very hard for us and we feel that as if we are drowning in our problems. when we feel this way we only need to look up and see that there is a hand reaching out to save us.

It is far easier to make war than peace.

It's important, when going after a goal, to never lose sight of the integrity of the journey.

Never is a concept the Yankees won't ever come across.

Surely if each one saw another's heart, There would be no commerce, No sale or bargain pass: all would disperse And live apart.

If kind parents love their children and delight in their happiness, then he who is perfect goodness in sending abroad mortal contagions doth assuredly direct their use.

Obamacare won't just bankrupt the country. It may bankrupt small businesses. It may bankrupt individuals.