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.

I never work from an outline, and often I dont know how the story will end.

Life is made up of circles ... Life is not a straight line ... And sometimes we circle back to a past time. But we are not the same. We are changed forever.

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.

I think its important to remember where I began. I know that when I talk to other writers, say, writers from the South or writers from abroad, its where they begin as children that is important to them.

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.