Quotes

I don't make pictures just to make money. I make money to make more pictures.

I'd rather entertain and hope that people learn, than teach and hope that people are entertained.

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

I hope we'll never lose sight of one thing--that it was all started by a mouse.

I happen to be an inquisitive guy and when I see things I don't like, I start thinking why do they have to be like this and how can I improve them.

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

[quoted in the book "The Humour of Sex" by Robert Hale] I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known.

[on the Order of DeMolay, a Masonic youth organization] I feel a great sense of obligation and gratitude toward the Order of DeMolay for the important part it played in my life. Its precepts have been invaluable in making decisions, facing dilemmas and crises. DeMolay stands for all that is good for the family and for our country. I feel privileged to have enjoyed membership in DeMolay.

People like to think their world is somehow more grown up than Papa's was.

I sell corn, and I love corn.

You know, every once in a while I just fire everybody, then I hire them back in a couple of weeks. That way they don't get too complacent. It keeps them on their toes.

[to director Richard Fleischer, who made 20.000 Lieues sous les mers (1954) for Disney, on how to be successful] Well, then, why don't you do as I do? Let somebody else do all the work and you take all the credit.

Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious... and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

The proper comedy for the screen is visual. Films try to get too many laughs out of the dialogue. We use pantomime not wisecracks. Portrayal of human sensations by inanimate objects such as steam shovels and rocking-chairs never fail to provoke laughter. Human distress exemplified by animals is sure-fire. A bird that jumps after swallowing a grasshopper is a natural. Surprise is always provocative.

Every time they make a pornographic film, I make money.

I think the picture would have done better with a different title. Girls and women went to it, but men tended to stay away because it sounded sweet and sticky. - On Pollyanna (1960)

As long as there is imagination left in the world, Disneyland will never be complete.

We don't make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.

[Being a celebrity] doesn't even seem to keep the fleas off our dogs - and if being a celebrity won't give me an advantage over a couple of fleas, then I guess there can't be much in being a celebrity after all.

[observation, 1940] 'Fantasia' merely makes our other pictures look immature and suggests for the first time what the future of this medium may well turn out to be. What I see way off there is too nebulous to describe. But it looks big and glittering. That's what I like about this business, the certainty that there is something bigger and more exciting just around the bend - and the uncertainty of everything else.

I believe in the family unit. I believe in the family having fun together, enjoying things together, which is what Disneyland is.

We don't actually make films for children, but we make films that children can enjoy along with the parents.

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island.

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

[responding to a letter from a little girl who had asked for his photograph with Woody Woodpecker and others, 1964] Dear Wendy, Even though Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Pluto and Ludwig Von Drake aren't related to Woody Woodpecker, I'm glad to know you like him because he belongs to my good friend Walter Lantz. I know Mr. Lantz will appreciate knowing you are a friend of Woody. I am enclosing an autographed picture of me and a couple of my friends you asked for... and sending your note to Woody Woodpecker. Perhaps you will get a picture of him too.

I don't like to repeat successes. I like to go on to other things.