What is perfect? Journey, a thing doesn't have to be perfect to be fine. That goes for a picture. That goes for life....Things can be good enough.

All the world can be found in poetry. All you need to see and hear. All the moments, good and bad, joyous and sad.

Fact and fiction are different truths.

I have to write what I can write, and writing the text of a picture book is like walking a tightrope, if you ramble off... As my friend Julius Lester says, A picture book is the essence of an experience.

My greatest fear is being somewhere without a book.

Sometimes poetry--words--give us a small, lovely look at ourselves. And sometimes that is enough.

I, myself, write to change my life, to make it come out the way I want it to. But other people write for other reasons: to see more closely what it is they are thinking about, what they may be afraid of. Sometimes writers write to solve a problem, to answer their own question. All these reasons are good reasons. And that is the most important thing I'll ever tell you. Maybe it is the most important thing you'll ever hear. Ever.