Peter Sis

“I still dream about doing something simple, very simple and universal.”

“When you have little children, you want to tell them about joy and happiness and hope. And then comes the time you want to tell them there are tough moments. I admire people who can do that.”

“I'm a visual person, so it always starts with a picture, and then I get obsessed with the idea, sometimes too much. I have these blank books in which I take notes, and I add postcards and other physical items.”

“If I would use anything from 'The Little Prince,' even some little quote, it's all copyrighted in France. Like Walt Disney in this country, it's a national treasure.”

“When I was about 12 or 13, my father gave me 'The Little Prince.' He was making sure that I knew it was a special book. I'd seen the name of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, but to me it seemed a very French name, and I was not excited about him as a person.”

“I am afraid that people will think I re-illustrated 'The Little Prince,' when really, it was more a tribute to him as a dedicated pilot and a man who believed in the goodness of people.”

“Ursula Nordstrom was famous for finding artists in unlikely places. Maurice Sendak was a window designer, and she just came across one of his windows. Everyone was looking to find a talent.”

“The birds never needed passports... We always thought, the birds can go wherever they want, and we couldn't, really. The birds were very much the symbol of... free movement for me.”

“I didn't understand in the beginning that the editor didn't want me to know the author. I'd make an effort to meet the author, but it would end up being a disaster because then I had the author telling me what I should be doing.”

“My father documented on film for the last time what Tibet looked like before the world got there.”

“I still have an accent. But when I return to Prague, I speak the language yet do not know what they are talking about.”

“How do you visualize something you've never seen and just imagined, through someone you love very much?”

“I grew up in society when lots of things were hidden, and they were not hidden just one way, but it was very complicated.”

“People think children's books are about teddy bears and little flowers. I realize people sometimes don't know what to do with my books because they say, 'Is it a children's book, and what age group?'”

“When I do my own books, I take it as more of my own confessional, but when I illustrate for other people, it is intriguing because I feel like I shouldn't be stepping too much into the limelight. It's like playing the piano while someone else is singing.”

“I know there are some good American police. But I grew up in a country where we were afraid of the police.”

“I had a very comfortable life, but there were people who spent their life in prison, whose families were destroyed.”

“I always think like I was born in the country where everybody ate apples. Then I ended up in the country where everybody eats bananas. So now, I eat bananas so long, I'm just remembering the apples.”

“I trust the pictures to tell what I want to say.”