John Burningham


“Making pictures is like making a conversation: you can use hundreds and hundreds of different colors and patterns and things but it will be completely meaningless unless it accomplishes what you set out to do. Some people cant stop talking. It’s a sign of insecurity, usually. They fear silence. And there’s this awful idea about illustration that if you have lots and lots of color, then you have given children what they want. I think that is a way to make kids bored.”

John Burningham interview with Leonard S. Marcus in Show Me a Story

Illustration by John Burningham, The Boy Who Was Always Late, 1987.