1.
I want a nice picture book with 12 pictures - I do my best with that format.
Dick Bruna
2.
When I make a book, I make it for the child and not for the parent - no jokes in it for the parents!
Dick Bruna
3.
Each book first begins with a little idea.
Dick Bruna
4.
Now, I had been drawing all this time - especially in France of course - so, when I came back, my father gave me the chance to do a cover for one of the books he published.
Dick Bruna
5.
I did about 2000 covers altogether, for all sorts of books - from Shakespeare to James Bond - and I always had the idea that I must give 100%, no matter who the author was.
Dick Bruna
6.
I have been drawing all my life.
Dick Bruna
7.
I come from a family of business people, but I had the idea I wanted to become an artist.
Dick Bruna
8.
I thought it would be very nice to become Picasso or Rembrandt, or a van Gogh.
Dick Bruna
9.
But we discovered that, although I liked publishing, the commercial side meant nothing at all to me.
Dick Bruna
10.
I thought it was amazing to work with authors, to get a manuscript and try to make up a cover for it.
Dick Bruna
11.
My father realised that for me to become a publisher in his firm would have been the end of the firm!
Dick Bruna
12.
Then one day I thought it would be wonderful to make a whole book, to make my text and my drawings together, and that's how I started doing children's books.
Dick Bruna