“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.