Hayao Miyazaki Quotes

Many of my movies have strong female leads - brave, self-sufficient girls that don't think twice about fighting for what they believe in with all their heart. They'll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a savior. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.

I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where they two mutually inspire each other to live– if I’ m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.

Always believe in yourself. Do this and no matter where you are, you will have nothing to fear.

Always believe in yourself. Do this and no matter where you are, you will have nothing to fear.

It is the fate of modern life that we repeatedly lose touch with nature, the environment, the planet. But we try to regain it again and again. It's like a circle. In children's hearts and souls when they're born into the world, nature already exists deep inside them. So what I want to do in my work is tap into their souls

I am an animator. I feel like I'm the manager of a animation cinema factory. I am not an executive. I'm rather like a foreman, like the boss of a team of craftsmen. That is the spirit of how I work.

When you watch the subtitled version you are probably missing just as many things. There is a layer and a nuance you're not going to get. Film crosses so many borders these days. Of course it is going to be distorted.

Life is a winking light in the darkness.

The creation of a single world comes from a huge number of fragments and chaos.

I’d like to see Manhattan underwater.

I’d like to see when the human population plummets and there are no more high rises, because nobody’s buying them. I’m excited about that. Money and desire—all that is going to collapse, and wild green grasses are going to take over.

I do believe in the power of story. I believe that stories have an important role to play in the formation of human beings, that they can stimulate, amaze and inspire their listeners.

In my grandparents' time, it was believed that spirits existed everywhere - in trees, rivers, insects, wells, anything. My generation does not believe this, but I like the idea that we should all treasure everything because spirits might exist there, and we should treasure everything because there is a kind of life to everything.

Those are shrines. Some people believe spirits live in them.

In our work, the question is, how much you absorb from others.

So for me, creativity, is really like a relay race. As children we are handed a baton. Rather than passing it onto the next generation as is, first we need to digest it and make it our own.

Engineers turn dreams into reality.

No matter how many weapons you have, no matter how great your technology might be, the world cannot live without love.

Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It's produced by humans who can't stand looking at other humans. And that's why the industry is full of otaku!

I think we should stop using nuclear power plants because it's an old system that we can't control.

We live in an age when it is cheaper to buy the rights to movies than to make them.

I wanted to convey the message to children that this life is worth living.

The characters are born from repetition, from repeatedly thinking about them.

I have their outline in my head. I become the character and as the character I visit the locations of the story many, many times. Only after that I start drawing the character, but again I do it many, many times, over and over. And I only finish just before the deadline.

I managed to work for more than 50 years with just paper, pencils and film.

My son's generation and the one coming up after can't work with just paper and pencils any more. I managed to avoid using a computer. I don't even have a cellphone. I feel lucky I managed to live like that.

I don't like games. You're robbing the precious time of children to be children. They need to be in touch with the real world more.

Actually I think CGI has the potential to equal or even surpass what the human hand can do.

Virtual reality is a denial of reality.

We need to be open to the powers of imagination, which brings something useful to reality. Virtual reality can imprison people.

I believe nostalgia has many appearances and that it's not just the privilege of adults. I think children too can have nostalgia. It's one of mankind's most shared emotions. It's one of the things that makes us human. When you live, you lose things. It's a fact of life. So it's natural for everyone to have nostalgia.

The principle I adhere to when directing, is that I make good use of everything my staff creates. Even if they make foregrounds that don't quite fit with my backgrounds, I never waste it and try to find the best use for it.

Well, yes. I believe that children's souls are the inheritors of historical memory from previous generations. It's just that as they grow older and experience the everyday world that memory sinks lower and lower. I feel I need to make a film that reaches down to that level. If I could do that I would die happy.

Airplanes are the most beautiful when they are in the air.

People in Japan have experienced many tsunamis and various earthquakes throughout the ages.

My process is thinking, thinking and thinking - thinking about my stories for a long time.

What you mean by 'peace' is nothing more than the endless repetition of human folly.

I wish I was better at art. I love some of the great artists of the 19th century and, compared to them, I just feel I lack this technique that they had. They have so much skill.

I get inspiration from my everyday life.

The love of weaponry is often a manifestation of infantile traits in an adult.

Since I am a person who starts work without clear knowledge of a storyline, every single scene is a pivotal scene.

Is someone different at age 18 or 60? I believe one stays the same.

Its not a story in which the characters grow up, but a story in which they draw on something already inside them, brought out by the particular circumstances. I want my young friends to live like that, and I think they, too, have such a wish.

I never read reviews. I'm not interested. But I value a lot the reactions of the spectators.

At the time, sword and sorcery stories were quite popular.

There were female warriors waving swords around as well, but the genre is populated entirely with people who have absolutely no responsibility to anyone, so I knew my story would have to be completely different from any of these.

To have a film where there's an evil figure and a good person fights against the evil figure and everything becomes a happy ending, that's one way to make a film. But then that means you have to draw, as an animator, the evil figure. And it's not very pleasant to draw evil figures.

I can't stand modern movies. The images are too weird and eccentric for me.

I myself become terrified of death when I am in a negative state of mind.

But the thought of death ceases to bother me once I become productive.

In order to grow your audience, you must betray their expectations.

We depict hatred, but it is to depict that there are more important things.

We depict a curse, to depict the joy of liberation.

Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves.

Chihiro, huh? Her real name's Chihiro? Can't beat the power of love.

The single difference between films for children and films for adults is that in films for children, there is always the option to start again, to create a new beginning. In films for adults, there are no ways to change things. What happened, happened.

I think talent decides everything. More than the method, what's important is the talent using it. There's nothing inherently wrong or right about a method, whether it be pencil drawings or 3-D CG. Pencil drawings don't have to go away, but those who continue to use the medium lack talent. So sadly, it will fade away.

The villains are all parts of me. For years I've been wondering what it would be like if all those negative elements were forced onto the main character's side. I can understand a character with that kind of anger.