Shaun Tan Quotes

When I'm on a plane, I am the annoying person humming into my phone. Sitting there static with nothing to do, a lot of melodies come to me. So I've written a lot of songs on planes.

We're constantly buying airplane tickets; we travel on the Concorde.

The only thing I like about air travel is it gives me time to read.

As a child, one of my defense mechanisms was to try to be funny. My mom tried to nurture that by putting me in acting class. But I got bored when we stopped pretending to be trees and actually had to work.

Airline travel is hours of boredom interrupted by moments of stark terror.

You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.

It was an hour and a half plane ride, so I slept. I try to sleep because that's probably the only time I get to get my real sleep. When I can't sleep I read books or watch movies.

I'm on a lot of airplanes, so I just sip on red wine thinking of stupid ideas and, when I think of it, I wanna make it happen.

I like to be working and moving - the worst thing you can do to me is stick me in a room all day while you're lighting a shot. That just kills me.

One travels to run away from routine, that dreadful routine that kills all imagination and all our capacity for enthusiasm.

I think it's necessary to let kids get bored once in a while - that's how they learn to be creative.

I do have some books, but in all the distance flights I've made I've never opened the books. I've been too busy.

Imagination makes us aware of limitless possibilities. How many of us haven't pondered the concept of infinity or imagined the possibility of time travel? In one of her poems, Emily Bronte likens imagination to a constant companion, but I prefer to think of it as a built-in entertainment system.

I mean, I don't know anything else that I would try to do, but it's a very frustrating thing to do, because you are trying to take what's a fantasy in your head and make it live through the minds of 200 people.

I remember doing my mosaics or being in my little hiding place behind the couch snooping. I'd get bored sometimes, of course, but I think that's good for a kid, because it forces you to be creative.

I was the first in my family to board an airplane. I was the first in my family to get kicked off an airplane.

The idea of being stuck in a plane with dozens of people chatting over each other on their phones might feel like Dante's 10th circle of hell.

I have an imagination because my life is so boring that my imagination lets me get off the reality of what's going on.

Usually when I'm on a plane, I try to enjoy the fact that I have to be still for eight hours and read a book.

I still don't know how to jump-start a car, even though it's been told to me a million times. But I do love thinking about how creativity works.

I can't work in a domestic kitchen; it's just too confined. There's no freedom, and there's no buzz.

Everybody seems to wonder what it's like down here. I gotta get away from this day-to-day running around. Everybody knows this is nowhere.

Baby, you are gonna miss that plane.

Boredom comes simply from ignorance and lack of imagination.

When I fly, I'm never afraid the plane is going to crash. But there have often been times when I was afraid it wouldn't crash. I was just afraid it was going to circle O'Hare for the rest of my life.