Quotes from Chris Van Allsburg

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'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 sensitive to the things I see.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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 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.'

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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