Top 24 Quotes by Maira Kalman

The most inspiring objects are books. I have about 5,000 volumes in my home library. It's an unending source of visuals and ideas.

I still do have the little lunch bag that my mother made out of a towel and embroidered with my name on it for when I went to kindergarten.

If I could never work again and I could just listen to music and walk, I'd be very, very happy.

I don't like plots. I don't know what a plot means. I can't stand the idea of anything that starts in the beginning - you know, 'beginning, middle and end.'

My workspace is defined by books, ephemera, quiet and light. I don't have a computer, telephone or a fax machine there.

In any work you do, you can be profound one minute, and then you be superficial the next, and you can be smart and insightful and then insipid. There can be room for all that.

I don't like anything permanent; I have to be able to flee. You have to be able to flee at a moment's notice.

You'd have to be completely crazy not to be influenced by and take from other artists. It's completely impossible not to.

I live in a small world of gouache and brush and pen and ink. I'd like to explore the world of multiples - etching and prints.

I like Thomas Jefferson, though he intimidated me. I thought he would have been very tough to be around. I don't know if he had such a sense of humor.