Chris Van Allsburg Quotes

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Chris Van Allsburg

Profession : Author

Birth : June 18, 1949

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

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

Chris Van Allsburg

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

'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?'

Chris Van Allsburg

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

Chris Van Allsburg

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

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

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

Chris Van Allsburg

My stories are often a little mysterious.

Chris Van Allsburg

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

Chris Van Allsburg

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

Chris Van Allsburg

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

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

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.

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

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

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.

Chris Van Allsburg

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

Chris Van Allsburg