Chris Van Allsburg Quotes

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There must be something to think about at the end.

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 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.

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?'

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I take my ideas from my experiences.

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.

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

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

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

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

I like the gizmos that transport people.

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

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

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.

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

An award does not change the quality of a book.

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

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

There's definitely a value in being literate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

My stories are often a little mysterious.

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

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

I'm sensitive to the things I see.

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.

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