Eric Carle Quotes
One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and - pop! - out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar.
Eric Carle
(The Very Hungry Caterpillar, 1969)
Papa, please get the moon for me.
In the light on the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.
I often tell people about the four magic letters: DO IT.
The hardest part is developing the idea, and that can take years.
Simplify, slow down, be kind. And don't forget to have art in your life - music, paintings, theater, dance, and sunsets.
"The Very Hungry Caterpillar” story is about hope. You, like the little caterpillar, will grow up, unfold your wings and fly off into the future
We have eyes, and we're looking at stuff all the time, all day long. And I just think that whatever our eyes touch should be beautiful, tasteful, appealing, and important.
He built a small house, called a cocoon, around himself. He stayed inside for more than two weeks. Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon, pushed his way out and... he was a beautiful butterfly!
Let's put it this way: if you are a novelist, I think you start out with a 20 word idea, and you work at it and you wind up with a 200,000 word novel. We, picture-book people, or at least I, start out with 200,000 words and I reduce it to 20.
Over time I have come to believe many children can identify with the helpless, small, insignificant caterpillar, and they rejoice when it turns into a beautiful butterfly. I think it’s a message of hope. It says: I too can grow up. I too can unfold my wings and fly into the world.
They are deceptively simple. I admit that. But for me, all my life I try to simplify things. As a child in school, things were very hard for me to understand often, and I developed a knack, I think. I developed a process to simplify things so I would understand them.
On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon. That night he had a stomach ache.
I often tell people about the four magic letters: DO IT. I want to be encouraging but I can only offer the example of my own experience, which is just one approach. There are many wonderful picture book artists to learn about, which is important. But you must use your own imagination. You have to just do it.
Whether it's a coffee cup, or a poster, or a book illustration, or a typeface, it has to be designed in such a way that it is not trashy, and doesn't pollute your eye. We have so much pollution out in the air. Our eyes are being polluted. We have visual pollution out there, and I have a very strong sense about that.
One day I think it's the greatest idea ever that I'm working on. The next day I think it's the worst that I've ever worked on – and I swing between that a lot. Some days I'm very happy with what I'm doing, and the next day I am desperate – it's not working out!
And then finally, it's just right – and that just right, it's just a feeling. There's nothing scientific about it.
Ever since I was very young, as far back as I can remember, I have loved making pictures. I knew even as a child that, when I grew up, I would be an artist of some kind. The lovely feeling of my pencil touching paper, a crayon making a star shape in my sketchbook, or my brush dipping into bright and colorful paints — these things affect me as joyfully today as they did all those years ago.
You know, now it's sinking in. It's taken me a long time to realize – and it is sinking in – how important this book is. And I have a certain distance now. I've done it such a long time ago. And when I did it, it really wasn't a very important book. It was just a nice book and I enjoyed doing it, certainly. And I liked it, obviously.
But I never imagined that it would become so important to so many children. My friends and I and my editors talk about, "What is the success of this book? Why do children love it?"
We haven't come up with an answer, but I think what it is is it's a book of hope. You little, ugly, little, insignificant bug: you, too, can grow up to be a beautiful, big butterfly and fly into the world, and unfold your talents. Now, I didn't think of this when I did the book, but I think that is the appeal of the book.
In the light on the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.
One Sunday morning, the warm sun came up and POP! – out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar.
He started to look for some food. On Monday he ate through one apple, But he was still hungry.
On Tuesday, he ate through two pears, But he was still hungry.
On Wednesday, he ate through three plums, But he was still hungry.
On Thursday, he ate through four strawberries, But he was still hungry.
On Friday, he ate through five oranges, But he was still hungry.
On Saturday he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon. That night he had a stomachache!
The next day was Sunday again. The caterpillar ate through one nice green leaf. And after that he felt much better.
But now he wasn’t hungry anymore. And he wasn’t a little caterpillar anymore. He was a big fat caterpillar.
He built a small house around himself, called a Cocoon, And he stayed inside for more than two weeks.
Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon, pushed his way out, and
He was a beautiful butterfly.
