Ideas mostly come from the work itself. Often when I'm drawing, the words will be bouncing around in my head, and when I'm writing, ideas about the drawing happen.

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.

The morning time is also a time when I look at what I did yesterday. That's often a jumping-off point for today.

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.

A long time ago, I had an idea to make a book for preschoolers who had older siblings who were going to school.

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.

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.