I'm from the East Coast. I love the city. I love the characters. I love the kind of people we are, the kind other people look at in amazement.

What's most important in animation is the emotions and the ideas being portrayed. I'm a great believer of energy and emotion.

Animation is tremendously resilient. Animation will recover, as art always recovers. There's always cycles of good art.

As an artist, I want to interpret my feelings - not run across the street and ask what my mother thinks.

As an artist, I want to interpret my feelings

I would like to have the original ending to my Lord of the Rings instead of the one they released. In my original cut I had the victory at Helm's Deep as the final sequence.

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

Look what Disney's done to their animation department. There wasn't an animator in charge of their animation unit!

All the old great companies were run by guys who knew what an animator meant, and guys who knew how to draw. All the companies today are run by executives.

The rise of anime had to happen. If the Japanese could tell better American stories, it would go through the roof. They still tell stories which are very much oriental. I take my hat off to them.

I draw what I feel, which is no more than doing my job.

I have run from a lot of relationships in favor of being alone. And I tend to find men who use their money and status as a dating tool to be unattractive.

I was supposed to be cool about this, yeah, I remember - cool was the plan. Tried to keep it all under wraps, but the wraps kept going slack. I keep turning round, I keep coming back.

I mean, '8 ½' to me is such a great dissertation on the whole, you know, act of filmmaking and creativity.

I don't like critics; I really don't like them. I think most of them are ignorant and don't have a clue!

That which, perhaps, hears more nonsense than anything in the world, is a picture in a museum.

Cats are designated friends.

If we can accept whatever hand we've been dealt - no matter how unwelcome - the way to proceed eventually becomes clear.

Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer'.

Fashion is what you feel comfortable in and being a little adventurous with it.

Run forward when possible, walk ahead when you can, stagger onward when you must, but never cease your forward movement.