Top 259 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Illustrators

Once upon a time, I thought faeries lived only in books, old folktales, and the past. That was before they burst upon my life as vibrant, luminous beings, permeating my art and my everyday existence, causing glorious havoc.

The stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory from which the image is never cast out to be thrown on the rubbish heap of things that are outgrown and outlived.

I like being able to do anything. I think that's healthy, doing anything and everything, rather than just getting completely obsessed with one particular genre or particular kind of work.

I want kids to understand that making pictures is similar to making music; there are so many instruments and so many tunes that the possibilities for how you play are truly limitless.

Life isn't long enough to do all you could accomplish. And what a privilege even to be alive. In spite of all the pollutions and horrors, how beautiful this world is. Supposing you only saw the stars once every year. Think what you would think. The wonder of it!

If you have one person you’re influenced by, everyone will say you’re the next whoever. But if you rip off a hundred people, everyone will say you’re so original!

My "mission", if you can call it that, is to connect with my readers on an emotional level and have them come away with a stronger impression of the basic message in the story I am illustrating.

In creating the Harry Potter artwork, I try to bring a certain amount of realism and believability to the characters and setting, but still add an element of wonder and the unknown.

Looking back I realize I had the perfect family background to become the political cartoonist that I became. My father was stupid, insensitive, and cruel, thereby making me distrustful of all authority. On the other hand, I had a warm, supportive and encouraging mother, which made me want to fix the world.

I am doing what I want to do - painting pictures people want and understand. I have no burning ambition to create the kind of 'art' which the confused critics praise for its 'plastic significance,' 'fluid lines,' and 'inner awareness,' or 'must be understood on three levels.

Left right left right. We're army ants. We swarm we fight. We have no home. We roam. We race. You're lucky if we miss your place.

I'm drawn to characters who bear similarities to the protagonists in myths and legends. (...)

I had been working at home at the time and was looking to find a studio space somewhere outside of my apartment. I thought that might be good for me in terms of having a little bit more discipline with my work habits.

A lot of young artists in particular think you can just do one great thing and then sit back and collect checks. Most artists, even people like Dan Clowes, who's one of my heroes, don't just do comics. He does paid illustration. He writes screenplays, and so forth, working and selling lots of different things.

Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and for thy possession, the ends of the earth. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces, like a potters vessel. Be wise now therefore, ye kings. Be admonished, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son lest he be angry, and ye perish in the way, though his wrath be kindled but a little.

I've always been literally a lover of the absurd. I think the absurd gives a new dimension to reality and even to common sense. And life, you know, on an everyday basis, is absurd, or may turn out to be absurd. There's no reality without absurdity.

Kandinsky in Munich uttered the well known words: 'Everything is permitted!' In 1961; we still live by this heritage, which in truth is inexhaustible.

But I find that for myself, without exception, the more I deal with the work as something that is my own, as something that is personal, the more successful it is.

I am an author-illustrator of children's books - and yet - I must confess I don't do the books for the kids. When I'm working on a book I'm somewhere else - at the circus - or a rustic old farm - or deep in a forest - with no thought of who might read the book or what age group it would appeal to. I write them so I can illustrate them.

True beauty lies deep within. No matter what you look like on the outside, if you know you are beautiful, nothing can change that.

I'll let you in on a secret ...How to avoid taking a wrong turn. I speak from experience. Don't blame the world around you. The world is very much larger ...than you realize. Large enough to embrace all of you.

Everything that I have told you is, of course, a fairy tale. Life is magical, after all. Nothing is safe and everything changes.

I don't relax. My main relaxation is meeting illustrators and publishers in restaurants and bars.

I know how to write stories that are accessible to younger readers, and sophisticated enough for older ones. I'm not a big fan of the all ages label, but I keep a wider audience in mind.

Simplicity is not about making something without ornament, but rather about making something very complex, then slicing elements away, until you reveal the very essence.

The Little House was very happy as she sat on the hill and watched the countryside around her. She watched the sun rise in the morning and she watched the sun set in the evening. Day followed day, each one a little different from the one before . . . but the Little House stayed just the same.

Every little movement has a meaning of its own.

In its jolly mission to expose the dark underbelly of the children’s book world, Wild Things! turns up stories I’ve been hearing noised about for ages, but with a lot more detail and authenticity. The stories may not be quite as sordid as my own imagination had conjured up—although a few of them are—because there’s no denying that this field is full of mostly nice people!—but it’s all fun and a great read for anyone interested in both children’s books and the collection of people who make them.

The really great thing about cats is their endless variety. One can pick a cat to fit almost any kind of decor, income, personality, mood. But under the fur, there still lies, essentially unchanged, one of the world's free souls.

Artists need to fill themselves to overflowing and give it all back.

Like the sundial, my paint box counts no hours but sunny ones.

If art is therapy, if art is to inspire, if art is a weapon, if it is a medicine to heal soul wounds, if it makes one not feel alone in his or her visions, or if it serves as transportation to a higher self, then that is where I aspire to live every day.

Believe what you like, but don't believe everything you read without questioning it.

We must cling only to drawing.

To marry and have children is the ideal life for a woman. What career could ever be as fine? To give the world splendid men and women-isn't that the noblest thing a woman could possibly do?

Before they read words, children are reading pictures.

Well, I do expect a lot of myself. I'm a harsh critic because I know what I'm capable of. I have hit those occasional peaks amongst the valleys, but the peaks are so few-things like genuine flashes of virtuoso brush inking, like I've never executed before or since-I can count on one hand the number of jobs where I've been able to hit that mark. The same with penciling. Sometimes it just flows, but more often than not, it's pure physical and spiritual torment just to get something decent on paper. I often get very discouraged with the whole creative process.

You could easily spend several lifetimes trying to master film. It make very good use of all the things that I love. Narrative, image-making, also sound and music. It's so full that I can't really imagine getting tired of it. Or getting to the point like I feel like I know it.

My one failing as an artist is that I depend on reference material to perhaps a greater extent than I should. Delacroix said that if you can draw a man falling out of a window and have the drawing finished before he hits the ground then you're a real artist. I wasn't that kind of artist.

I've always liked making things that don't deny the medium that they're made in. If it's collage, I'm happy for it to look like that. If it's a film made with computers, I don't mind that it looks like a film made with computers as long as it still has a feeling or a mood or an atmosphere that is relevant.

In my journey to becoming an artist who writes, I tend to start my idea process with simple, concrete messages that relate to what kids may be experiencing as they navigate through childhood and adolescence putting together building blocks of the foundations on which they will become adults.

We live in a time when there is an abundance of ways we can express ourselves.

The process of creating art allows me to learn about the subject I'm illustrating. So, if I want to learn more about plantation life and slavery, I try to find clients that will give me an opportunity to work on projects that will visualize those experiences of the enslaved African and people of color. I get to learn about my roots, and my artwork allows the reader into that world by creating images that are accessible.

When you just get fantasy stories that are about fairies or goblins, I just don't care. I'm never going to meet a goblin, it doesn't mean anything to me. So my definition of fantasy is very broad, it's anything to do with memory, or dreams, or ways of interpreting or making sense of the world.

I studied art at Queens College, taking very few courses in literature. But I've always loved reading poetry and grew up enjoying the so-called beat poets, Allan Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, and Gregory Corso among them. The poems of Ogden Nash also inspired me, having first seen his work while browsing in a library when I was in the sixth grade.

The approach to "building" a story with words and phrases is no different than "building" a painting with brushes and pigments.

Usually, the most difficult thing to do is photo-real stuff. Something that has to actually look like the real world, because it's just so difficult to do that. We're just so used to looking at the real world, our brains instantly see when something is not quite right.

Will you come with me, sweet Reader? I thank you. Give me your hand.

I will be sad. I've gotten very attached to Harry and all that goes on in his world, I guess I'll just be kind of tasting every bit of it because it will be the last one.

Drawing creates its own kind of private space. Coupled with certain interests that I want to speak to in my art, it's really kind of a safe haven for me. Creating art is not only a comfort zone, but also a way of speaking to my passions.

I think it likely that some of my pupils will reach unusual distinction.

Don't take my criticisms as iron-clad rules but more as suggestions.

The art has to have a life of its own and not merely illustrate. I've always felt a great illustration can make a good poem even better. That's the advantage I have in illustrating my own work - I have the freedom to leap far from the poem.

I will always be an artist first. I see my writing as an extension of my illustrating.

The power of both myth and art is this magical ability to open doors, to make connections - not only between us and the natural world, but between us and the rest of humanity. Myths show us what we have in common with every other human being, no matter what culture we come from, no matter what century we live in. . .and at the same time, mythic stories and art celebrate our essential differences.

Paint ideas, paint thought.

Receiving both the Coretta Scott King - Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award suggests I have succeeded, at least in terms of my own goals, in my intent to make art that moves children.

Inspiration is cross-pollinating.

I try to use models at least for the main characters because of the nature of my art. I tend to focus on the humanity of my subjects, the details of expression that add a certain reality to the work. Real faces = real art. That's the goal anyway.

One of the troubles with signings is that you are surrounded by children, and some of them have got colds.