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

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 write for what's left of the eight-year-old still rattling around inside my head

its not bad to be different. Sometimes it's the mark of being very very talented.

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

Following my muse has worked out pretty well so far. I can't see any reason to change the formula now.

I don't think ordinary things are very interesting, so I try to imagine a world that is less ordinary.

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.

I pore over every word on the cereal box at breakfast, often more than once. You can ask me anything about shredded wheat.

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.

Certain peer pressures encourage little fingers to learn how to hold a football instead of a crayon. I confess to having yielded to these pressures.

...man's life must be a straight line of motion from goal to farther goal, each leading to the next and to a single growing sum, like a journey...

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

I used to tease Joe Louis by reminding him that I was the greatest of all time. But Joe Louis was the greatest heavyweight fighter ever.

One of the biggest issues for me is campaign finance reform.

There is no reality of consciousness independent of the effects of various vehicles of content on subsequent action (and hence, of course, on memory).

I know for me, and what the Bible teaches, I want to have a relationship with Jesus.

A leader these days needs to be a host - one who convenes diversity; who convenes all viewpoints in creative processes where our mutual intelligence can come forth.

In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.

Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day - the description was, 'Never shot. Dropped once.

The best way of getting into something is to think of it as mischief.