Maurice Sendak is the daddy of them all when it comes to picture books - the words, the rhythm, the psychology, the design.
Something happens to our creativity as we go through the education process; most of us lose touch with it.
Although I have two good Anglepoise lights, I much prefer to work by daylight.
Children will come out and listen to a writer whose books they like. They don't need a government agency or a medal that says 'laureate' to continue that.
As a child, I'd always liked cowboys and Indians stories where there were two layers - gruesome in the foreground but funny in the background.
Worrying can be a kind of caring, and as such is a healthy part of a balanced emotional life.
I grew up in Yorkshire, and once or twice a year, we'd travel over the Pennines to see my cousins in Cheshire.
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.
A lot of my characters are underdogs or sad or lonely, but I had a comfortable, golden sort of childhood.
The first things I remember drawing were battles - big sheets of paper covered in terrible scenes of carnage - though when you looked closely, there were little jokes and speech bubbles and odd things going on in the background.
I see 'Hansel and Gretel' as a breakthrough book for me, and one of the reasons is because I started to apply meaning to the hidden details.
I use a little brush only for really small details. Over the years, I've started to use a much larger brush.
Everyone can draw when they're five. Most of us lose the ability.
Picture books are being marginalised. I get the feeling children are being pushed away from picture books earlier and earlier and being told to look at 'proper' books, which means books without pictures.
I didn't have picture books - there weren't many around when I was a child.
Pictures are as evocative to me as smells.
Most people lose their natural creativity at about five or six - but not me.
The first thing I put down on paper is a storyboard, like a film director.
As adults, we've seen so much before that we often turn the pages of a picture book without really looking. Young children tend to look more carefully.
Writers are articulate. Artists find it more difficult.
Gorillas remind me of my father. He was a very big, physically strong man but also very sensitive.
