Chris Van Allsburg

There's definitely a value in being literate.

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.

Authors of books are not given very much control over the films that are made from their books.

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.

I don't like to travel. Yet all my books seem to involve a journey.

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.'

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.

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.

Your house is all about routine, not the unexpected events of your life.

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.

My ideas are not meant to suggest dreams or reality, but a surreal quality.

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