Zitat des Tages von Chris Van Allsburg:
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 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?'
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.
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.
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.
What kids are exposed to on television is more frightening and horrifying than what they see in my books.
I think parents generally know what's best for their children. But I suppose it's possible to be overprotective.
The idea of the extraordinary happening in the context of the ordinary is what's fascinating to me.
They don't send people from large corporations to hire people to make sculptures.
As much as I'd like to meet the tooth fairy on an evening walk, I don't really believe it can happen.
I write for what's left of the eight-year-old still rattling around inside my head.
Following my muse has worked out pretty well so far. I can't see any reason to change the formula now.
People have asked me a lot, 'What comes first? The pictures or the story? The story or the picture?' It's hard to describe because often they seem to come at the same time. I'm seeing images while I'm thinking of the story.
I'm not a perfectionist. I'm just very observant.
I'm not surprised that my books appeal to adults.
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.
There's definitely a value in being literate.
When somebody says, 'This must be a children's book,' basically they're saying, 'You must be a child.' And so my answer is, 'Well, yes, I guess I am a child.' But I don't think of myself that way.
I'm always a bit disappointed when I've finished working on a book.
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 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 think, for the most part, our culture embraces that artists are born, not made.
As the years went by I became a writer and illustrator, although exclusively of fantasies.