Maira Kalman

Every Monday morning is new hope.

I'm in a complete state of panic before I begin something because I'm sure that it's going to be a complete disaster. I'm going to do a worse job than anybody could ever imagine anybody doing on the planet Earth.

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

It is impossible to know what fate will bring. If you love to write or paint, you will keep on writing or painting, and things will either work out or not, and you just have to keep being in the process.

On my desk, I always have a lemon or a lime drying. I love the fragrance. Also, a Staedtler eraser, a brush for the eraser and a pencil sharpener.

My mother was the influence on me - my father was absent. He was a diamond dealer; he was doing wonderful things in the background, and women were left at home. So my mother really was in charge of everything: the ballet, dance lessons, piano lessons, and latkes.

I like the brooding man - a brooding man with a sense of humor.

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.

Michael Pollan is a champion. In all ways. A man of great integrity, humor, and common sense and kindness.

My short attention span has allowed me a life of diversity in work and place.

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.

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.