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

Book lovers love books!” her mother announced. “There’s romance about the books- even having them seems to have a kind of excitement.”from Mr. Linden’s Library by Walter Dean Myers

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.

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

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.

My stories are often a little mysterious.

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

‘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?’

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 idea of the extraordinary happening in the context of the ordinary is what’s fascinating to me.

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’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 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...

I like the gizmos that transport people.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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

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.

There’s definitely a value in being literate.

At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet...

What kids are exposed to on television is more frightening and horrifying than what they see in my books.

I think it’s difficult to forget things that are unresolved.

I was about 28-29 when I wrote my first story, and that was called ‘The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.’

As the years went by I became a writer and illustrator, although exclusively of fantasies.

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

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...

I try to satisfy the desires that people have to have their books personalized. That’s a value, or feature, of bibliophilia that may vanish. How do you get your e-book signed? The idea of people...

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

I’m not surprised that my books appeal to adults.

I have very positive memories of reading biographies of unusual Americans as a child.

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?’

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...

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...

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

I’m sensitive to the things I see.

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

I don’t like to get scared – it’s not one of the emotions I enjoy. So I have to assume that if there are scary things in my books, they aren’t very scary.

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 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...

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 am never really surprised at the way my books take shape. They are just not as perfect as I’d like them to be.