Biografia

Seuss (his mother's maiden name) is pronounced to rhyme with "voice"--not with "loose", as it commonly is.

His first children's book, "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" (1937), was rejected by over 20 publishers.

Of his many works, only four could truly be called political. "The Lorax" was a parable on short-sighted exploitation of natural resources, "The Butter Battle Book" was a commentary on the arms race, "The Sneetches" dealt with racism and "Yertle the Turtle" himself was representative of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.

Despite the famous line from ''Horton Hears a Who''--"A person's a person no matter how small"--being used as a slogan by anti-abortion groups, Seuss himself was a supporter of reproductive rights, and his widow has threatened lawsuits against groups that use this in campaigns.

One night while riding home on a train, he saw a pompous, stuffy-looking man with a hat on his head. Seuss wondered what would happen if someone were to knock the hat off his head and then realized the man was so full of himself that another hat would probably appear on his head as a replacement. This inspired Seuss to write "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins".

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.

[asked why he was not a father of any children] You keep having kids, I'll keep writing books for them.

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

[on the false rumor that he disliked children] Well, like anyone you know, there are good kids and there are creeps. And I like the good ones and I don't like the creeps.

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.