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.

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.

No voice teacher can be all things to all people. You have to gain information from whatever sources you can. You have to listen.

Fire made us human, fossil fuels made us modern, but now we need a new fire that makes us safe, secure, healthy and durable.

There is a land where a man, to live, must be a man.

The door available to everyone that can lead to happiness & success is the modest door of the public library. I found it to be so in my own life and work.

All my life I've taken photographs of people who are completely at peace being what they were in the situations I photographed them in.

I was involved in school plays, but when I left school I did a couple of odd jobs as a baker's apprentice and then as a fruit market porter in Manchester

Wild flowers grow where they will.

Some people say, 'Do you have any theories on acting?' And I say, well maybe: I think you can start with zero and end with zero. You don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to go for the result.

How would you like to find out how good my right is?

If you go out looking for friends, they'll be scarce. If you go out looking to be one, you'll have all the friends you need.