Most of the day I work standing up, as I once read somewhere that it's the best position for the back.

- Anthony Browne

Children will come out and listen to a writer whose books they like. They don't need a government agency or a medal that says 'laureate' to continue that.

- Anthony Browne

Picture books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older. The best ones leave a tantalising gap between the pictures and the words, a gap that is filled by the reader's imagination, adding so much to the excitement of reading a book.

- Anthony Browne

Stories come to me and I don't know where they come from, but afterwards I can look back and say, 'Oh yes, that's got a little bit of me, or a little bit of my own son in it'. That's where ideas come from.

- Anthony Browne

What excites me about picture books is the gap between pictures and words. Sometimes the pictures can tell a slightly different story or tell more about the story, about how someone is thinking or feeling.

- Anthony Browne

When I talk to children, I show them a typical drawing I made when I was six and point out to them that when I was their age, I didn't draw any better than any of them.

- Anthony Browne

When I was a boy, I was a worrier, and so was my son, Joe. I used to tell him that worrying meant he had an imagination and that one day he'd be pleased.

- Anthony Browne

One of my main decisions when accepting the job of Children's Laureate was that I must continue working on picture books. If I don't write and illustrate for some time, then I begin to question who I am.

- Anthony Browne

Pictures are as evocative to me as smells.

- Anthony Browne

Most people lose their natural creativity at about five or six - but not me.

- Anthony Browne

Stories come to me in mysterious ways, more like dreams than reasoned creations.

- Anthony Browne

M dad was a boxer, so he had this fierce, physical presence.

- Anthony Browne

I've always felt that I was a bit of an outsider to the British children's-book illustration scene, because I don't work in line and wash.

- Anthony Browne

I use a little brush only for really small details. Over the years, I've started to use a much larger brush.

- Anthony Browne

I see 'Hansel and Gretel' as a breakthrough book for me, and one of the reasons is because I started to apply meaning to the hidden details.

- Anthony Browne

I played rugby from the age of 10 until my late twenties; an unlikely player - small, quiet, long-haired and 'wiry.'

- Anthony Browne

I didn't have picture books - there weren't many around when I was a child.

- Anthony Browne

Having a memoir and a retrospective of your work running almost simultaneously when you're still alive does feel a bit posthumous.

- Anthony Browne

Everyone can draw when they're five. Most of us lose the ability.

- Anthony Browne

As a child, I'd always liked cowboys and Indians stories where there were two layers - gruesome in the foreground but funny in the background.

- Anthony Browne