Chris Van Allsburg quotes:

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.

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.

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.

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

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.'

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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

There's definitely a value in being literate.

My stories are often a little mysterious.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?'

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 like the gizmos that transport people.

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 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 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

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

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

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

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.

An award does not change the quality of a book.

There must be something to think about at the end.

I take my ideas from my experiences.

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

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

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.