Great Throughts Treasury

"I take great pride in the artistic development of cartoons. Our characters are made to go through emotions."

"I wanted to retain my individuality. I was afraid of being hampered by studio policies. I knew if someone else got control, I would be restrained."

"I try to build a full personality for each of our cartoon characters - to make them personalities."

"I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained."

"I think what I want Disneyland to be most of all is a happy place — a place where adults and children can experience together some of the wonders of life, of adventure, and feel better because of it."

"I’d say it’s been my biggest problem all my life... it’s money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true."

"If I can't find a theme, I can't make a film anyone else will feel. I can't laugh at intellectual humor. I'm just corny enough to like to have a story hit me over the heart..."

"I'd say it's been my biggest problem all my life... it's money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true."

"I’ve been selfishly indulging myself as an American… as a United States citizen… enjoying all privileges that one has as a citizen, and it’s only times like this that you sort of wake up to … what it really means to be a citizen."

"If anybody gets highbrow around the studio—out he goes."

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

"I'm doing this because I want to do it better."

"If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you."

"In America, we are guaranteed these freedoms. It is the constitutional privilege of every American to become cultured or to grow up like Donald Duck."

"In learning the art of storytelling by animation, I have discovered that language has an anatomy."

"I'm not interested in pleasing the critics. I'll take my chances pleasing the audiences."

"In my view, wholesome pleasure, sport, and recreation are as vital to this nation as productive work and should have a large share in the national budget."

"It’s no secret that we we're sticking just about every nickel we had on the chance that people would really be interested in something totally new and unique in the field of entertainment."

"In this volatile business of ours, we can ill afford to rest on our laurels, even to pause in retrospect. Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future."

"It's a mistake not to give people a chance to learn to depend on themselves while they are young."

"It's no secret that we were sticking just about every nickel we had on the chance that people would really be interested in something totally new and unique in the field of entertainment."

"It feels good when it helps to get a good seat for a football game. But it never helped me make a good film or a good shot in a polo game, or command the obedience of my daughter."

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."

"It has that thing - the imagination, and the feeling of happy excitement I knew when I was a kid."

"It seems to me shallow and arrogant for any man in these times to claim he is completely self-made, that he owes all his success to his own unaided efforts. Many hands and hearts and minds generally contribute to anyone's notable achievements."

"It's the principal thing I hope to leave when I move on to greener pastures. If I can help provide a place to develop the talent of the future, I think I will have accomplished something."

"It's something that will never be finished. Something that I can keep developing and adding to."

"I've always been bored with just making money. I've wanted to do things; I wanted to build things, to get something going..."

"Laughter is timeless. Imagination has no age. And dreams are forever."

"Never get bored or cynical."

"Laughter is America’s most important export."

"Leadership means that a group, large or small, is willing to entrust authority to a person who has shown judgment, wisdom, personal appeal, and proven competence."

"Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil."

"Movies can and do have tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood."

"Mickey Mouse is, to me, a symbol of independence. He was a means to an end. He popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner. Born of necessity, the little fellow literally freed us of immediate worry. He provided the means for expanding our organization to its present dimensions and for extending the medium of cartoon animation toward new entertainment levels. He spelled production liberation for us."

"Leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy."

"My fun is working on a project and solving the problems."

"My biggest problem? Well, I'd say it's been my biggest problem all my life. Money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true. From the very start it was a problem."

"My business is making people, especially children, happy. I have dedicated much of my time to a study of the problems of children."

"Nothing is impossible."

"Or heritage and ideals, our code and standards - the things we live by and teach our children - are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings."

"Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language."

"No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dreams that you wish will come true."

"No matter what the provocation, I never fire a man who is honestly trying to deliver a job. Few workers who become established at the Disney Studio ever leave voluntarily or otherwise, and many have been on the payroll all their working lives."

"Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children."

"Of all the things I have done, the most vital is coordinating the talents of those who work for us and pointing them towards a certain goal."

"Once a man has tasted freedom he will never be content to be a slave. That is why I believe that this frightfulness we see everywhere today is only temporary. Tomorrow will be better for as long as America keeps alive the ideals of freedom and a better life. All men will want to be free and share our way of life. There must be so much that I should have said, but haven't. What I will say now is just what most of us are probably thinking every day. I thank God and America for the right to live and raise my family under the flag of tolerance, democracy and freedom."

"Our contribution to television is entertainment, created without deviation from our conception of what entertainment should be."

"Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards -- the things we live by and teach our children -- are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings."

"Our part in things is to build along the lines we are known for, with happy family stories and comedies. I've never thought of this as art. It's part of show-business."