They were always on the move.But in truth said bull we are all going nowhere

Mercy Watson is a pig. She lives with Mr. and Mrs. Watson, who are not pigs. I had that basic premise, but I couldn't make it work. I would come back to it, try it, see that I was failing, and put it aside.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane began with a friend giving me a rabbit doll - forgive me, Edward, for using that word; he doesn't like "doll" - for Christmas. I said, "Oh, he's lovely, what's his name?" And she said, "Edward." And a few days after I received the rabbit, who was dressed very handsomely in Edwardian kind of clothes, I saw him stripped of his finery and face down on the bottom of the ocean floor. Why? I don't know. But that's where his story began in my head.

I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart.

There's a notion of art in this country that you have to be nutty or special or "called" in order to be an artist. I believe the questions everyone should ask themselves are, "Do you want to do it? Are you willing to do it poorly? Are you willing to do the work of doing it? Are you willing to persist when everybody tells you it's silly?" If you're willing to do that, then you can do it.

What I hope is that the book [Bink & Gollie] delights children. What I hope is that they laugh and laugh and laugh, just as we did when we wrote them.

I'm predisposed to think that as a people, we're hardwired to understand things through the telling of stories. I think that as human beings it's part of who we are.