Mary GrandPre Quotes

For whatever crispness and animation my writing has I give some credit to the cartoonist manque.

My writing partner, Nicki, and I became obsessed with a monologist who performs unscripted shows equipped with nothing more than scribbled bullet points and a glass of water. We wrote him a fan letter and found ourselves sharing lunch and eventually a friendship.

I think visually, and music videos spark my creativity.

I've always found it difficult to start with a definite idea, but if I start with a pond that's being drained because of a diesel fuel leak and a cow named Hortense and some blackbirds flying over and a woman in the distance waving, then I might get somewhere.

I think my books come out very visual, which is an obvious consequence.

By the time I sit down and face the blank page I am raring to go. I tell it as if I'm talking to my best friend or one of my grandchildren.

Whether it's music, loss of something, loneliness or friendship - if that emotion is heightened in some way and painted to fit in between the covers of 32 pages, that can become a picture book.

I like looking at the characters. Seeing them always brings up some voice or attitude. I am much more visual, and that works so much better than having someone tell me what the character is all about.

I like working closely with artists. I think that's very important in fantasy and science fiction - the visual aspect of the worlds and the characters.

Inspiration is key for me in choosing characters.

What I like best is a book that's at least funny once in a while. What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.

More and more, as I grow older, I find myself looking for inspiration in painting, illustration, videogames, and old movies.

As a filmmaker, you're looking to reveal something. When other people relate to it, it makes an otherwise lonely world a little less lonely.

In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see.

I write really visually. In my head, I'm constantly picturing things as I'm writing, so for me, videos are such an expressive part of my job.

To be an animator you have to be able to tell stories but I'm not very verbal - I definitely do it through pictures.

When I am writing music, I sometimes envision a video playing alongside.

Whenever I work with people who are nonclassical artists, I kind of get a kick in the pants. I think, 'How can I apply what I do to their music?'

I get inspired from all different kinds of places - cartoons, comic books, movies and things like that.

I am bound to get carried away by anyone who approaches me with a good script.

Run The Jewels, me and Mike, and our connection and everything, came out of a period of time where I had personally lost everything.

I'm a very visual person, which is probably why I make videos rather than write scripts.

A lot of 'Time' was actually about a friend's relationship and me seeing what she went through and how she felt.

I got the idea for the song 'Bad Company' when I saw a poster for the Jeff Bridges movie, and it reminded of an old Victorian picture that I'd once seen, and it said, 'Beware of bad company.' So I sat down at the piano and started to write the song.

I always wanted to act. To be with my friends. To share something with the audience about the human condition.