MORDICAI GERSTEIN

Every book is a unique experience.

I like the computer! It's a gadget, and I love gadgets. But it's very complicated and I didn't think I'd have the time to learn.

We are creatures like everything else in our world.

It took me a long time to stop thinking that someone else knew what a great painting was. I was never sure.

Writing for children is my... that's my medium, you know, and the medium is the picture book, which is a very particular kind of book. I try to give children what I would give anybody, you know. I become interested in something. I find something fascinating. It has to fascinate me, and then I want to give it to them.

I looked at Rembrandt and Superman, Matisse and Bugs Bunny, and began to make my own pictures.

Each one seems to be, in some way, essentially different from the others, and each is a surprise to me. I think that making books, or any kind of art, might also be like mining. The artist digs into his or her life and imagination and never knows what they'll find. That's the adventure.

I'm still surprised to be an author. I wonder what I'll write next?

I had always loved cartoons, especially 'Bugs Bunny,' and I found I enjoyed making animated films. Even a 30-second commercial involved drawing and painting, storytelling, not to mention actors, music, and sound effects.

I wanted everybody to see a sunrise and be knocked out by the miracle of it, the world being created every morning.

I looked at Rembrandt and Superman, Matisse and Bugs Bunny, and began to make my own pictures.

Writing for children is my... that's my medium, you know, and the medium is the picture book, which is a very particular kind of book. I try to give children what I would give anybody, you know. I become interested in something. I find something fascinating. It has to fascinate me, and then I want to give it to them.

Each one seems to be, in some way, essentially different from the others, and each is a surprise to me. I think that making books, or any kind of art, might also be like mining. The artist digs into his or her life and imagination and never knows what they'll find. That's the adventure.

I'm still surprised to be an author. I wonder what I'll write next?

I had always loved cartoons, especially 'Bugs Bunny,' and I found I enjoyed making animated films. Even a 30-second commercial involved drawing and painting, storytelling, not to mention actors, music, and sound effects.

Well, 9/11 made me think about the towers, and the fact that I lived in New York for a long time, while they were being built. In fact, I had a studio that was ripped out, along with the whole neighborhood, to put the towers in. I saw them go up. I lived with them, running past them in the morning. And they were like part of my furniture.

People have their own ideas how about they should appear.

I wanted everybody to see a sunrise and be knocked out by the miracle of it, the world being created every morning.

I almost always see what I didn't achieve, to a smaller or greater extent.

I'm the expert when it comes to my paintings. I think all great painters have to have that confidence in what they are seeking and when they're getting there.

If I keep coming back to a painting and there's a little something that bothers me, I know I'm not going to get away with it. I'm going to have to fix it, change it, whatever it is, to something that I'm comfortable with, that doesn't make me itch when I look at it.

I look at the textures, surfaces, colors, and the individual objects in the painting. And then I wonder: what are the relationships among them? Those relationships are everything.

I like the computer! It's a gadget, and I love gadgets. But it's very complicated and I didn't think I'd have the time to learn.

You have to learn how to do each book. It's a different world, a different show.

We are creatures like everything else in our world.

I've always loved Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. There's this wonderful chapter in which we get a first-person account of the monster's first impressions of the world, being in the woods and taking things in. We're seeing the world as if for the first time. That's just fascinating.

It took me a long time to stop thinking that someone else knew what a great painting was. I was never sure.

Every book is a unique experience.