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.

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.

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.

The only reason I'm friends with any of you is because I outgrew the von Trapps, one annoying Austrian at a time.

F.U.R FOCUS-URGENCY-RESPONSIBILITY--- As a team you can move mountains without any effort, simply because of our combined faith and commitment!

I think you have to be fair with one another. It's unfortunate when someone does something that's not authentic, or not there for any reason other than to draw attention.

What I wouldn't give to find a soul mate, someone else to catch this drift.

People who travel are always fugitives.

Beauty never slumbers; All is in her name; But the rose remembers The dust from which it came.

Mr. McCabe thinks that I am not serious but only funny, because Mr. McCabe thinks that funny is the opposite of serious. Funny is the opposite of not funny and nothing else.

When I look back on my work, I'm proud of what I've done.

What can art really do in the face of atrocity?

I'm perceived to be this solitary character, but nothing could be further from the truth.