Anthony Browne Quotes

When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting.

I first became aware of the delights of the natural world when my father, an entomologist, presented me with what looked like a twig. When it got up and walked, my delight was such that I wrote a poem, 'To a Walking Stick.'

I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder.

The photographs of space taken by our astronauts have been published all over the place. But the eye is a much more dynamic mechanism than any camera or pictures. It's a more exciting view in person than looking at the photographs. Of course, I personally am sick and tired of hearing people talk like that: I want to see it myself!

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.

I've discovered that half the people would love to go into space and there's no need to explain it to them. The other half can't understand and I couldn't explain it to them. If someone doesn't know why, I can't explain it.

I think I am a child. Everything blows my mind.

Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.

When I'm an audience member I do not want to go and see something that I already know, I want to see something that I don't know. I want to be surprised and stimulated to think about something. I want the magic. I want to be in a situation of uncertainty; that's what excites me.

It is part of the photographer's job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

When I was a kid, I read the science-fiction shelves, and I read the fantasy shelves.

Anything that I read, I read because I'm interested in it.

The most important thing is to live an interesting life. Keep your eyes, ears and heart open. Talk to people and visit interesting places, and don't forget to ask questions. To be a writer you need to drink in the world around you so it's always there in your head.

Nothing much interested me other than playing with language and telling stories and doing something with the wonders of the world around me.

The world is so different for a child, waking in the mornings, wide-eyed and ready to take it all in.

If there wasn't mystery, people wouldn't have anything to ponder. If you already knew everything, you wouldn't have anything to think about and life would just be really boring.

All I know is that I am constantly intrigued by something I'm doing.

To be matter-of-fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy - and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.

One travels so as to learn once more how to marvel at life in the way a child does. And blessed be the poet, the artist who knows how to keep alive his sense of wonder.

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.

To me, science fiction is about the sense of mystery, the sense of awe. Not 'shock and awe', just 'awe.'

Young readers have to be entertained. No child reads fiction because they think it's going to make them a better person.

The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.

It's important always to have a sense of wonder.