Chris Van Allsburg quotes - page 2

I have lots of ideas. The problem for me has always been which one to do. (Chris Van Allsburg)
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
I take my ideas from my experiences. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
As long as I can remember, I've always loved to draw. But my interest in drawing wasn't encouraged very much. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
I'm always a bit disappointed when I've finished working on a book. View quote
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
I have very positive memories of reading biographies of unusual Americans as a child. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
My stories are often a little mysterious. (Chris Van Allsburg)
Authors of books are not given very much control over the films that are made from their books. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
If I'm not working on something, I'm eager to work on something because it's so gratifying. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
I'm sensitive to the things I see. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
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?' View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
I don't like to travel. Yet all my books seem to involve a journey. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
They don't send people from large corporations to hire people to make sculptures. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
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. (Chris Van Allsburg)
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg
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. View quote
Chris Van Allsburg