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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Do not, for one more minute, spend your precious time and energy on or surround yourself with people who are less than you deserve.

I wouldn't say I was bullied, but I was definitely a bit of an outcast. It was more the kids thinking I thought I was cool. I started homeschooling in fifth grade, and I was much happier.

People here believe in uncontrollable passion, in mad rages, and in the brusque inevitability of death.

I firmly believe that our salvation depends on the poor.

the reason for anger is always fear.

You know how as a kid you picture yourself with a tall, handsome husband, and you imagine him cuddling your baby? Ben is like that, like, on crack.

Ability is that sufficiency which cometh from God.

The most important thing is who counts the votes.

A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.

I don't know why people would be interested in what I do. Maybe they feel how I feel. Maybe it's because we're all missing something, and I just happen to wear that on my sleeve.