Chris Van Allsburg Quotations

A good picture book should have events that are visually arresting - the pictures should call attention to what is happening in the story.

Santa is our culture's only mythic figure truly believed in by a large percentage of the population. It's a fact that most of the true believers are under eight years old, and that's a pity.

At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration.

I'm not a perfectionist. I'm just very observant.

'The Polar Express' began with the idea of a train standing alone in the woods. I asked myself, 'What if a boy gets on that train? Where does he go?'

The Polar Express is about faith, and the power of imagination to sustain faith. It's also about the desire to reside in a world where magic can happen, the kind of world we all believed in as children, but one that disappears as we grow older.

Brainstorming, for me, takes place in my bed at night between the time I turn out my lights and I finally fall asleep. It is not a very violent storm, but what's happening is I am just thinking about different ideas and maybe things I've seen that day that I think might make a good story.

There was a great deal of peer recognition to be gained in elementary school by being able to draw well. One girl could draw horses so well, she was looked upon as a kind of sorceress.

The crudest thing I've done as a teacher was to require students to write a national anthem for their country and sing it themselves.

I think most people agree there is a component of skill in art making; you have to learn grammar before you learn how to write.

Some artists claim praise is irrelevant in measuring the success of art, but I think it's quite relevant. Besides, it makes me feel great

I write for what's left of the eight-year-old still rattling around inside my head

The whole idea of being mesmerized and not in control of your own actions is fascinating and a little spooky. I remember hearing about someone who'd gone to a magic act, and a person in the audience had become hypnotized by observing too closely what magician was doing on stage, and thought it was spooky to lose your consciousness that way.

I have very positive memories of reading biographies of unusual Americans as a child.

As much as I'd like to meet the tooth fairy on an evening walk, I don't really believe it can happen.

Following my muse has worked out pretty well so far. I can't see any reason to change the formula now.

I think it's difficult to forget things that are unresolved.

My ideas are not meant to suggest dreams or reality, but a surreal quality.

Your house is all about routine, not the unexpected events of your life.

I love the idea of a tiny window between the back stoop and the pantry, where the milkman would pass through the cheese. But of course, there is no milkman anymore. So somebody coming by the house and seeing the window would say, 'Oh, that must be original, because that's where the milkman passed the cheese through to the pantry.'

The Dick, Jane, and Spot primers have gone to that bookshelf in the sky. I have, in some ways, a tender feeling toward them, so I think it's for the best.

The idea of the extraordinary happening in the context of the ordinary is what's fascinating to me

As the years went by I became a writer and illustrator, although exclusively of fantasies.

Even the most complicated stories start with a very simple premise.

I am never really surprised at the way my books take shape. They are just not as perfect as I'd like them to be.

Peter Rabbit's not a rabbit. Peter Rabbit is a proxy for the child who reads the book, and they imagine themselves in the rabbit's position.

I believe that there will be many things that happen to me in my life that I will not be able to explain. Some of those might be magic. I'm not sure.

I'm always a bit disappointed when I've finished working on a book.

Growing up in the 1950s, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, boys were supposed to be athletic.

I was about 28-29 when I wrote my first story, and that was called 'The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.'

I sculpted for four or five years. Mostly for my own amusement, I decided to do a picture book, and that was kind of a turning point.

People have asked me a lot, 'What comes first? The pictures or the story? The story or the picture?' It's hard to describe because often they seem to come at the same time. I'm seeing images while I'm thinking of the story.

I think parents generally know what's best for their children. But I suppose it's possible to be overprotective.

I think, for the most part, our culture embraces that artists are born, not made.

It did occur to me that certainly African-Americans are not underserved in picture books, but those books are almost all about specifically black experiences.

What kids are exposed to on television is more frightening and horrifying than what they see in my books.

When somebody says, 'This must be a children's book,' basically they're saying, 'You must be a child.' And so my answer is, 'Well, yes, I guess I am a child.' But I don't think of myself that way.

The theory of isolation of certain tasks in certain hemispheres of the brain suggests I shouldn't even be able to speak, never mind write.

Authors of books are not given very much control over the films that are made from their books.

As long as I can remember, I've always loved to draw. But my interest in drawing wasn't encouraged very much.

They don't send people from large corporations to hire people to make sculptures.

It seems to me that not only the writing in most children's books condescends to kids, but so does the art. I don't want to do that.

It was the case for a number of years that I was doing a book a year, but that was back when I was part-time teaching - and since 1991, I've been a parent, so that cuts into the time!

It's not in the interest of the artist to think of his market.

I've heard stories about authors filled with this kind of Lotto-winner hubris. I'm a Dutch boy from the Midwest. We don't have hubris.

I try to satisfy the desires that people have to have their books personalized. That's a value, or feature, of bibliophilia that may vanish. How do you get your e-book signed? The idea of people standing in line to get my signature in their book, it's hard to turn them away.

I'm not surprised that my books appeal to adults.

In the same way that a mundane object can have a personality somehow, I try to suggest that a mundane setting can have some menace behind it.

I don't know if what kids really want is a hamster. What they want is a dog. So the hamster ends up being a substitute: 'Well, would you accept this?'

If you don't know where you're going, stop racing to get there. -- from Just Desert by M. T. Anderson

Some people may contend that there is no image more charming that a child holding a puppy or kitten. But for me that's a distant second. When I see a child clutching a book... to his or her tiny bosom, I'm moved. Children can possess a book in a way they can never possess a video game, a TV show, or a Darth Vader doll. A book comes alive when they read it. They give it life themselves by understanding it.

I have lots of ideas. The problem for me has always been which one to do.

I take my ideas from my experiences.

I've always thought of the book as a visual art form, and it should represent a single artistic idea, which it does if you write your own material.

There must be something to think about at the end.

The Polar Express was the easiest of my picture book manuscripts to write... Once I realized the train was going to the North Pole, finding the story seemed less like a creative effort than an act of recollection. I felt, like the storys narrator, that I was remembering something, not making it up.

I pore over every word on the cereal box at breakfast, often more than once. You can ask me anything about shredded wheat.

The inclination to believe in the fantastic may strike some as a failure in logic, or gullibility, but it’s really a gift. A world that might have Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster is clearly superior to one that definitely does not.

Certain peer pressures encourage little fingers to learn how to hold a football instead of a crayon. I confess to having yielded to these pressures.

Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me as it does for all who truly believe.

The Polar Express began with the idea of a train standing alone in the woods. I asked myself, What if a boy gets on that train? Where does he go?

I don't think ordinary things are very interesting, so I try to imagine a world that is less ordinary.

An award does not change the quality of a book.

its not bad to be different. Sometimes it's the mark of being very very talented.

The opportunity to create a small world between two pieces of cardboard, where time exists yet stands still, where people talk and I tell them what to say, is exciting and rewarding.

At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.

If I'm not working on something, I'm eager to work on something because it's so gratifying.

I don't like to get scared - it's not one of the emotions I enjoy. So I have to assume that if there are scary things in my books, they aren't very scary.

I don't like to travel. Yet all my books seem to involve a journey.

The general effect of viewing 'Jumanji' is thrilling. I was able to see on film a thing that at one point had only existed in my imagination. I got to see the images from my book come alive.