I remember my own childhood vividly...I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew. It would scare them

You cannot write for children They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.

Peter Rabbit, for all its gentle tininess, loudly proclaims that no story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it is not a work of imagination.

Most children - I know I did when I was a kid - fantasize another set of parents. Or fantasize no parents. They don't tell their real parents about that - you don't want to tell Mom and Dad. Kids lead a very private life. And I was a typical child, I think. I was a liar.

And [he] sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him and it was still hot

The fan mail I get from kids are asking me questions which they do not ask their mothers and fathers. Because if they had, why write to me, a perfect stranger?

I'm writing a poem right now about a nose. I've always wanted to write a poem about a nose. But it's a ludicrous subject. That's why, when I was younger, I was afraid of [writing] something that didn't make a lot of sense. But now I'm not. I have nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter.