I pore over every word on the cereal box at breakfast, often more than once. You can ask me anything about shredded wheat.

An award does not change the quality of a book.

If you don't know where you're going, stop racing to get there. -- from Just Desert by M. T. Anderson

I think most people agree there is a component of skill in art making; you have to learn grammar before you learn how to write.

Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me as it does for all who truly believe.

The Polar Express was the easiest of my picture book manuscripts to write... Once I realized the train was going to the North Pole, finding the story seemed less like a creative effort than an act of recollection. I felt, like the storys narrator, that I was remembering something, not making it up.

I've always thought of the book as a visual art form, and it should represent a single artistic idea, which it does if you write your own material.