Illustrator Quotes

I am in a very unsettled condition, as the oyster said when they poured melted butter all over his back.

I couldn't do them if I didn't know horses lived behind them.

Charles Keeping

Everyone must imagine his own snakes because no one else's snakes can ever be as awful.

Drawing is giving yourself up to an exercise with no immediate application. It is a form of communion with your subject, be it in front of you or in your head. Expertise and skill go hand in hand with your desire to express feelings, to tell stories, to create and share worlds. It's personal.

John Howe (illustrator)

I'm always astonished by a forest. It makes me realise that the fantasy of nature is much larger than my own fantasy. I still have things to learn.

To have known the man was even as great a treat as to read his books. Lewis Carroll was as unlike any other man as his books were unlike any other author's books. It was a relief to meet the pure simple, innocent dreamer of children, after the selfish commercial mind of most authors.

I've realized over the years that, with rare exceptions, most writer's block isn't writer's block at all: It's necessary time that allows the unconscious mind to do its deep work. The great Ah-Ha! moments don't usually come at the keyboard. They come when I'm lying on the floor, staring into space (or banging my head against the wall in frustration). All of a sudden the Unconscious Camera turns on, a movie starts playing in my head-and there it is: The Big Moment. Or the Whole Damn Story. And, in many ways, I had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

J. M. DeMatteis

On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon. That night he had a stomach ache.

Only one who has known how troubled life can be, has a real appreciation of it when it is good

Ludwig Bemelmans

Even enlightened despots don't make very good teachers.

There is much wisdom that may be learned before a peat fire.

Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle

All the famous people had had an awful time. One of them had a drunken father. Another had a stammer. Another had to wash hundreds of dirty bottles. They had all had what was called a difficult childhood. Clearly you had to have one if you wanted to become famous.

I don't see what people get from hating other people unless it's a special thing I just ain't hip to.

Alexis De Veaux

One winter morning Peter woke up and looked out the window. Snow had fallen during the night. It covered everything as far as he could see.

Ezra Jack Keats

Facts are the barren branches on which we hang the dear, obscuring foliage of our dreams.

Natalie Babbitt

Over the years I have learned that motherhood is much like an austere religious order, the joining of which obligates one to relinquish all claims to personal possessions.

Can you know excellence if you've never seen it? Can you know good if you have seen only bad?

E. L. Konigsburg

In the present age, alas! our pens are ravished by unlettered authors and unmannered critics, that make a havoc rather than a building, a wilderness rather than a garden. But, a lack! what boots it to drop tears upon the preterit?

Aubrey Beardsley

Family, that slippery word, a star to every wandering bark, and everyone sailing under a different sky.

Learning history is easy; learning its lessons seems almost impossibly difficult.

Nicolas Bentley

To the inhabitants of Warsaw - We wage war only against hostile troops, NOT against peaceful citizens.

Words and Deeds. Cartoon Caption

God knows, there's enough to worry about without worrying about worrying about things.

I believe that most of us would like to be thought well of by horses.

I find a particular delight in taking the caricature as far as I can. It satisfies me to stretch the human frame about and recreate it and yet keep a likeness.

The thing to be wished for, is not that the mountains should become easier, but that men should become wiser and stronger.