You cant second-guess yourself as a filmmaker.

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.

To hate everything is to be wounded by everything.

What is beauty or ugliness but a false front that prompts man to make assumptions rather than delving deeper.

I come from a Catholic religion, but I'm not Catholic.

There is something extraordinary about the first time falling.

I am quite prehistoric, absolutely prehistoric.

We have not come here to take prisoners But to surrender ever more deeply To freedom and joy.

I conceived in art college at the age of 20, near the end of term.

It means so much being a part of country music and the Opry.

Oh, how wretched should I be at this moment, if I had not made my peace with God.