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.”

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

“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, for the most part, our culture embraces that artists are born, not made.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.'”

“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.”

“The idea of the extraordinary happening in the context of the ordinary is what's fascinating to me.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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 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!”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“There's definitely a value in being literate.”