Quotes About Imagination

What has started to interest me is how you use all the different disciplines and tools we have at our disposal, and that includes going into different art forms, like music and movement, because often they can tap into things that characters can't necessarily express through words. Audiences really enjoy that total experience.

I don't use tools to create things, but I use them to realize things.

I was the kind of reader in smudged pink harlequin glasses sitting on the cool, dusty floor of the Arrandale public library, standing at the edge of the playground, having broken a tooth in dodge ball, and lying under my covers with a flashlight.

I suppose if you look back to your early childhood you accept everything people tell you, and that includes a heavy dose of irrationality - you're told about tooth fairies and Father Christmas and things.

When you're a kid, you're not as corrupted by the world at large. You're not corrupted by prejudices. You're much more open-minded. Much more interested in the world around you. 'Sweet Tooth' is about the world returning to that kind of place.

In the case of 'Sweet Tooth,' and in the case of a lot of stuff I do, it all starts with the image. It may be something I sketch in my sketchbooks - something that reoccurs in the sketchbooks. Eventually, a character or story line starts to grow out of that.

My childhood ambition was to become a Tooth Fairy. And I do talk about that in my book 'Is You Okay.' My mama always told me to say I wanted to be a corporate lawyer, and today I am much closer to being a Tooth Fairy than I ever was a Corporate Lawyer... so hah hah hah hah.

As much as I'd like to meet the tooth fairy on an evening walk, I don't really believe it can happen.

Kids delight in 'magical thinking', whether in the form of the Tooth Fairy or the saints: whether you see these as comforting lies or eternal verities, they are part of how we help kids make sense of the world.

Every single item that we come into contact with on a daily basis has been designed by an artist. From the toothbrush we use in the morning, to the defibrillator that could save our lives, an artist is behind the design.

I've always loved words. I ate up all the books I could get my hands on, and when I couldn't get books, I read candy wrappers and labels on cereal and toothpaste boxes.

Art is about building a new foundation, not just laying something on top of what's already there.

Mom was a school teacher, and she had to be at work at 7:30 every morning. So Dad was in charge of us three kids around the breakfast table. He always made it creative: he did the bananas with the smiley face and the eyes with peanut butter on top, made us drink grapefruit every morning even though we had to do it holding our noses.

I paint from the top down. From the sky, then the mountains, then the hills, then the houses, then the cattle, and then the people.

As long as you continue to have new songs, there's usually some new topic or something to present.

I used to write jokes with friends. We'd pick a topic and then think out loud, brainstorm.

I have a good idea every two years. Give me a topic, I will give you the idea!

You don't go to the library and walk along and pick out a topic. You are riding the bus, or shopping at Safeway, and all of a sudden the idea comes to you.

Writing an essay is like a school assignment: I have my topic, I organize my thoughts, and I write it. I have complete control over what I'm doing. Writing a novel is like setting out on a journey without knowing who or what I'll encounter, how long it's going to take, or where I'm going to end up.

For each book, there's a back story of where the idea came from. Sometimes it's derived from a current event or topic of discussion, such as 'Deadline.'

I would say any creative person has that: you can't just force a topic. Whether you're a painter, you want to do a cartoon. Anything. Something may come up that's not your style or suited to what you are working on at the moment. So you file it away and hopefully find a place for it.

I love fantasizing about what my next meal is going to be; it's probably my favorite topic of conversation.

When I think of folk music, I think of topical songs. And I don't write topical songs.

It's fun to take two topics and mix them into one cartoon.