Chris Van Allsburg Quotes
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As the years went by I became a writer and illustrator, although exclusively of fantasies.
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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.
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I think parents generally know what's best for their children. But I suppose it's possible to be overprotective.
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What kids are exposed to on television is more frightening and horrifying than what they see in my books.
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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.
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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.
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I don't like to travel. Yet all my books seem to involve a journey.
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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.
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The idea of the extraordinary happening in the context of the ordinary is what's fascinating to me.
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Authors of books are not given very much control over the films that are made from their books.
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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.
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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.
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Growing up in the 1950s, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, boys were supposed to be athletic.
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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.
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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.
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I was about 28-29 when I wrote my first story, and that was called 'The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.'
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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.
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I think it's difficult to forget things that are unresolved.
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I like the gizmos that transport people.
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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.
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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!
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As much as I'd like to meet the tooth fairy on an evening walk, I don't really believe it can happen.
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I think, for the most part, our culture embraces that artists are born, not made.
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'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?'