I love when I'm trying to do something I don't know how to do, and it kind of figures itself out along the way. And that means messing up a lot. That means throwing away a lot of drawings.

Some of it just involved thinking about, for example, the different kinds of science, what chemistry is.

I'm German, after all.

There will be scenes in a movie where people are walking through the park, or through a forest, and you're seeing the flickering leaves around them, and they're walking, but you're also hearing their words. It's an interaction between where they are and what they're saying that's both visual and verbal.

We had a dog, Lucky, who was fourteen years old. For the last year of his life, I would take him on these walks that were long but didn't cover much distance.

I do love that discovery of when you're trying to figure out how to make something work, and it happens in a way that you didn't predict.

I don't think about it that much, but sometimes I am surprised by that. I sometimes wonder why I didn't turn out to be the kind of picture-book writer who has stuffed animals that go with their books. That would be okay with me.