Words matter. These are the best Chris Van Allsburg Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
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.
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 write for what’s left of the eight-year-old still rattling around inside my head.
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.
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.
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.
They don’t send people from large corporations to hire people to make sculptures.
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.
Following my muse has worked out pretty well so far. I can’t see any reason to change the formula now.
It’s not in the interest of the artist to think of his market.
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!
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’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.
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.
There’s definitely a value in being literate.
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.
My stories are often a little mysterious.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
If I’m not working on something, I’m eager to work on something because it’s so gratifying.
I think parents generally know what’s best for their children. But I suppose it’s possible to be overprotective.
My ideas are not meant to suggest dreams or reality, but a surreal quality.
Your house is all about routine, not the unexpected events of your life.
The idea of the extraordinary happening in the context of the ordinary is what’s fascinating to me.
As long as I can remember, I’ve always loved to draw. But my interest in drawing wasn’t encouraged very much.
I like the gizmos that transport people.
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.
