Quotes by Illustrators

Moominmamma had got up very early to pack their rucksacks, and was bustling to and fro with wooly stockings and packets of sandwiches, while down by the bridge Moominpappa was getting their raft in order."Mamma, dar," said Moomintroll, "we can't possibly take all that with us. Everyone will laugh.""It's cold in the Lonely Mountains," said Moominmamma, stuffing in an umbrella and a frying pan. "Have you got a compass?""Yes," answered Moomintroll, "but couldn't you at least leave out the plates -- we can easily eat off rhubarb leaves.

Tove Jansson

As any avid reader knew, a good read deserved a good seat.

David S.E. Zapanta

Had not enough gone wrong?

Brom

Here, are the stiffening hills, here, the rich cargoCongealed in the dark arteries,Old veinsThat hold Glamorgan's blood.The midnight miner in the secret seams,Limb, life, and

Mervyn Peake

You know it’s the 21st Century when someone TEXTS you from the washroom to ask you to bring them a roll of toilet paper.

Tanya Masse

Go and play. Run around. Build something. Break something. Climb a tree. Get dirty. Get in some trouble. Have some fun.

Brom

My idea of Heaven has nothing to do with fluffy clouds or angels. In my Heaven there's butter pecan ice cream and swimming pools and baseball games. The Brooklyn Dodgers always win, and I have the best seat in the house, right behind the Dodger's dugout. That's the only advantage that I can see about being dead: You get the best seat in the house.

Jennifer L. Holm

Waddya want me to do? through my sling shot at him?

Shirley Hughes

When I was a child I had a fishless aquarium. My father set it up for me with gravel and plants and pebbles before he'd got the fish and I asked him to leave it as it was for a while. The pump kept up a charming burble, the green-gold light was wondrous when the room was dark. I put in a china mermaid and a tin horseman who maintained a relationship like that of the figures on Keat's Grecian urn except that the horseman grew rusty. Eventually fish were pressed upon me and they seemed an intrusion, I gave them to a friend. All that aquarium wanted was the sound of the pump, the gently waving plants, the mysterious pebbles and the silent horseman forever galloping to the mermaid smiling in the green-gold light. I used to sit and look at them for hours. The mermaid and the horseman were from my father. I have them in a box somewhere here, I'm not yet ready to take them out and look at them again.

Russell Hoban

Author visits are a fun way to engage kids, and encourage reading!

Carmela Dutra

One thing at a time,' said the Boy. 'You must be patient. This is a day of hope and wild revenge. Do not interrupt me. I am a courier from another world. I bring you golden words.Listen!' said the Boy. 'Where I come from there is no more fear. But there is a roaring and a bellowing and a cracking of bones. And sometimes there is silence when, lolling on your thrones, your slaves adore you.

Mervyn Peake

Ode to Douglas AdamsIn the solar system we inhabit, we live on a small planet we all call Earth. Okay, when I say small, I mean it’s small compared to say, oh, Jupiter. Earth is something like a dime compared to Jupiter’s beach ball. On this Earth is a fairly large country we all call The United States of America. Of course, when I say fairly large, it’s like the U.S. is a piece of broccoli next to China’s really large cauliflower. Now that I think of it, that may not be a good comparison as it depends on the restaurant you go to. At the place I was at last night it would be a good comparison as the cauliflower was larger than the broccoli. Not that I’d touch either. I had a hamburger with fries and somebody at the next table had those ghastly vegetables.From the Preface to "Sex and the American Male." I was saddened by the passing of Douglas Adams and wrote the preface to sound a little like his "Hitchhiker's..." books and to honor him. I hope he's smiling.

Jay Williams

I realized today that a daughter is born twice. For nine months, a mother carries and nourishes her daughter in her stomach, then gives birth to her. It's a happy occasion, but the mother is left feeling sadly empty inside...But I realized today that, after raising her within my love and embrace and sending her off in marriage, this day is just as sad and leaves me just as empty as the one when I first gave birth to

Kim Dong Hwa

Almost lost you," he thought, surprised to find himself blinking back tears. "Been through too much, me and you. We're going to finish this thing together.

Brom

See . . . um . . . the thing is, I met with Lisa a few days ago. She wanted to apologize for . . . Halloween, and not calling . . . Thing is, her previous story . . . um . . . She wanted me to read it. She . . . wanted to explain her issues. She was jealous . . . of you and me becoming friends and . . . kinda lost it, I guess.My point is, um . . . she used the story to put it into words . . .I think she is writing messages. . . to you.

Stjepan Šejić

Use art, be creative. No more war. No more children dying. A pawn that does not move in chess upsets the game. I know there is love in the world still and that is what i wish to surround myself with. Sacrifice your time and energy into something positive instead of the negative and you will see that change around you.

Lorin Morgan-Richards

I don't know what I was looking for . . . I felt empty. I guess. Not hearing from you made it all seem surreal, like you were never there, a dream, a figment of my imagination.I went to your site that day to . . . I guess, double-check.I thought. . . maybe you wrote something, a new story . . . a message . . . anything.I did find a new story . . . It wasn't about us . . .And I ended up feeling even emptier.

Stjepan Šejić

I'm perfectly happy to know the world at secondhand. It's a lot safer.

Cornelia Funke

My other boy thing is that I sort of have a teeny tiny superpower. It’s not a jump-over-buildings, see-through-people’s-clothes, or lift-a-train-over-my-head one, which is good, because when you can do those kinds of things you probably have to live in a secret hideout instead of at home with your mom and dad. And I really like my room….

Charise Mericle Harper

Self-pity is the hens' besetting sin," remarked Mr. Payton. "Foolish fowl. How they came to achieve anything as perfect as the egg I do not know! I cannot fathom.

Elizabeth Enright

Ordinary folk prefer familiar tastes - they'd sooner eat the same things all the time - but a gourmet would sample a fried park bench just to know how it tastes.

Walter Moers

The hemulen woke up slowly and recognised himself and wished he had been someone he didn't know.

Tove Jansson

I've seen you fuck up one major relationship. I'll be damned if I let you ruin this one as well!

Stjepan Šejić

She loves him sobut he didn't stay.The wind can't blowthis storm away.

Phoebe Stone

Many grim tales stem from your green lands, and still deeds both noble and evil shall yet unfold there.

Robin Jarvis

The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.

Stephen McCranie

We've decided to wake a miss for you because you are nice. We want a booby as roomful as ours."Everybody had seen the Hobgoblin laugh, but nobody believed he could smile. He was so happy that you could see it all over him -- from his hat to his boots! Without a word he waved his cloak over the grass -- and behold! Once more the garden was filled with a pink light and there on the grass before them lay a twin to the King's Ruby -- the Queen's Ruby.

Tove Jansson

As I look out at all of you gathered here, I want to say that I don't see a room full of Parisians in top hats and diamonds and silk dresses. I don't see bankers and housewives and store clerks. No. I address you all tonight as you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.

Brian Selznick

A wise man once said NOTHING... He just let her vent, nodded his head and live happily ever after!

Tanya Masse

The sandy beach reminded Harold of picnics. And the thought of picnics made him hungry. So he laid out a nice simple picnic lunch. There was nothing but pie. But there were all nine kinds of pie that Harold liked best. When Harold finished his picnic there was quite a lot left. He hated to see so much delicious pie go to waste. So Harold left a very hungry moose and a deserving porcupine to finish it up.

Crockett Johnson

How will I make a people who do not understand the power of belief believe?

Brom

We live in a world where we give our pounds to those who have too much and our pennies to those who have too little

Dean Griffiths

[about a hat] You can put it on and say, "Hey you, person without a hat! I've got something you don't! How did I get it? Probably by being worth more to society.

Alice LeGrow

It’s okay to dress up like another person, but never try to be someone else. Just try to be yourself, because that’s what makes you special. Oh, and watch out if a dragon ever starts to dance ballet.

Jeff Hutchins

In a town in Calabria, a long time ago, there lived an old lady everyone called Strega Nona, which meant "Grandma Witch".

Tomie dePaola

Childhood is cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth!

Maurice Sendak

Magic?" What did magic have to do with breaking into someone's store and stealing their stuff?"Don't you get it?" Peter said. "You're free now. You don't have to live by their rules anymore." Peter pointed into the inky blackness of the basement. "The darkness is calling. A little danger, a little risk. Feel your heart race, listen to it. That's the sound of being alive. It's your time, Nick. Your one chance to have fun before it's all stolen by them, the adults, with their cruelty and endless rules, their can't-do-this, and can't-do-that's, their have-tos, and better-dos, their little boxes and cages all designed to break your spirit, to kill your magic.

Brom

We could have made it to the Arizona border in a few more hours if we hadn't been distracting each other with stupid little arguments. Don't get me wrong; I liked J.Lo fine. I've made that bed. But I'm not sure there's a person in the world I could be with twenty-four hours a day for three weeks without getting a little snippy. If I ever meet such a person, I'm marrying them.

Adam Rex

All our ancestors were murdered, murderers, complicit to murder, or combating murder.

Lucy Knisley

The thing is, and here we come to E. Gorey's Great Simple Theory About Art (which he has never tried to communicate to anybody else until now, so prepare for Severe Bafflement), that on the surface they are so obviously those situations that it is very difficult to see that they really are about something else entirely. This is the theory, incidentally, that anything is art, and it's the way I tell, is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it's no good having one without the other, because if you have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it's irritating.

Edward Gorey

The Child Christ lives on from generation to generation in the poets, very often the frailest of men but men whose frailty is redeemed by a child's unworldliness, by a child's delight in loveliness, by the spirit of wonder.Christ was a poet, and all through His life the Child remains perfect in Him. It was the poet, the unworldly poet, who was King of the invisible kingdom; the priests and rulers could not understand that. The poets understand it, and they, too, are kings of the invisible kingdom, vassal kings of the Lord of Love, and their crowns are crowns of thorns indeed.

Caryll Houselander

It’s never too late to drop your beliefs and let your wounds heal. Instead of wounding others as well.

Adam Scythe

If you have to stretch that far to reach the justification you want, then perhaps you’re standing upon the wrong pedestal.

Russell J. Dorn

Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin.

Edward Gorey

Penelope? Thank you. For not leaving me alone to deal with this . . . when things got hard. other people would have. You're a true friend.

Svetlana Chmakova

You really are a dumbass.

Stjepan Šejić

He giggled like a puppy being tickled by a kitten wearing a duckling costume.

Jim Benton

Ant 1: So, uh, do you ever worry that your itsy little neck is just going to snap under the weight of your head? Ant 2: Stop asking me that. You ask me that, like, every five minutes. Ant 1: Sometimes I notice my antennae out of the corner of my eye and I'm all, like: AHH! Something is on me! Get it off! Get it off! Ant 2: Yeah, the antennae again. Listen, I just remembered, I have to go walk around aimlessly now.

Jim Benton

Things Isabella Wouldn't Care About: - Titanic sinking again. - Metror striking Earth and landing directly on top of world's most innocent panda. - Titanic sinking again and this time the entire crew is puppies.

Jim Benton

Approaching the forest from the west was no army, but a delegation of Grailsundanian master surgeons on their way to an appendix conference . . . But that isn't the craziest part of the story - oh, no, my boy, for approaching from the east was a party of itinerant watchmakers bound for the pocket-watch fair at Wimbleton . . . But not even that is the craziest part of the story! For apporaching from the south were over a hundred armourers and locksmiths on their way to Florinth, where some power-hungry prince had commissioned them to build a monstrous war machine . . . Well, that would be enough crazy coincedences for an averagely crazy story but the battle of Nurn Forest involved the most improbable coincedences in the history of Zamonia. For entering the forest, this time from the north came a delegation of alchemists.

Walter Moers

He giggled like a puppy being tickled by a kitten wearing a duckling costume.

Jim Benton

I can't imagine the scientists wanting me to walk into the lab and start fiddling around with some big bowl of electrons they had out.

Jim Benton

There are four categories of questions Emmily asks:1. Can I please go to the bathroom?2. Where is the bathroom?3. Is it okay if I raise my hand and ask a question?4. I don't understand anything you've said in the last thirty minutes. Could you explain it again? Also the last six weeks.

Jim Benton

I had the great idea of using markers to gently color the ants so I could tell them apart, but I learned that this is exactly like somebody trying to gently color on you with a thirty-story building. Without dwelling on the tragedy, I'd just like to say that I'm deeply sorry to Mr. Purple and the surviving Purple family.

Jim Benton

Time can play all sorts of tricks on you. In the blink of an eye, babies appear in carriages, coffins disappear into the ground, wars are won and lost, and children transform, like butterflies, into adults. That's what happened to me. Once upon a time, I was a boy named Hugo Cabret, and I desperately believed that a broken automaton would save my life. Now that my cocoon has fallen away and I have emerged as a magician named Professor Alcofrisbas, I can look back and see that I was right. The automaton my father discovered did save me. But now I have built a new automaton. I spent countless hours designing it. I made every gear myself, carefully cut every brass disk, and fashioned every bt of machinery with my own hands. When you wind it up, it can do something I'm sure no other automaton in the world can do. It can tel you the incredible story of Georges Melies, his wife, their goddaughter, and a beloved clock maker whose son grew up to be a magician. The complicated machinery inside my automaton can produce one-hundred and fifty-eight different pictures, and it can wrote, letter, by letter, an entire book, twenty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-nine words. These words. THE END

Brian Selznick

I'm the first to admit that I don't write right. Now, relax and enjoy the show! The sideshow, that is.

Lori R. Lopez

The day she was born,her grandfather made her a ring of silver and a polished stone, because he loved her already.

Aliki

Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia.

Mervyn Peake

We sat talking on a rock. The air was filled with the tang of sea-weed and of something else that could only have been the ocean smell. I felt so happy that I wasn't even afraid it wouldn't last.

Tove Jansson

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