Top 100 John Lasseter Quotes
#1. Look at the films of Walt Disney: 'Snow White' came out in February 1938, and I can't think of another film from that year that's watched as much. The same is true of 'Bambi,' 'Dumbo' ... even, frankly, 'Toy Story,' which is probably watched more than any other movie of 1995.
John Lasseter
#4. The specific influences on villains to me is, I love the villains who are really hyper-smart. When at the end of the movie you find out what they were about, and it makes absolutely perfect sense from their point of view.
John Lasseter
#5. At Pixar, after every movie we have postmortum meetings where we discuss what worked and what didn't work.
John Lasseter
#6. I believe in the nobility of entertaining people and I take great, great pride that people are willing to give me two or three hours of their busy lives.
John Lasseter
#7. When Walt Disney was making his films, he trusted his instincts and made films for himself, but they appealed to everybody, not just kids.
John Lasseter
#8. I worry about kids today not having time to build a tree house or ride a bike or go fishing. I worry that life is getting faster and faster.
John Lasseter
#10. I've often heard people say that managing creative people is the hardest thing in the world. 'They're never happy, they drive up the cost of things, blah blah blah.' I just manage people the way I always wanted to be managed. That is, to be creatively challenged, but never to be told what to do.
John Lasseter
#11. 'Bambi' is an amazing film, and when you watch it today, it's just as beautiful. It's timeless. It's just as beautiful today as it was back then.
John Lasseter
#12. I believe in research. Each movie at Pixar involves research with college professors or taking trips to learn as much as we can about a particular subject matter.
John Lasseter
#13. Toys are put on this Earth to be played with by a child.
John Lasseter
#14. Humor is the easiest to achieve; the 'heart' is always the toughest, because you can't tell people to feel a certain way.
John Lasseter
#16. In dire economic times, movies are relatively inexpensive entertainment for the whole family.
John Lasseter
#17. The more we all help each other, the more we all benefit. So go out there. Help others.
John Lasseter
#18. Pixar has been compared to fine furniture makers who polish the backs of drawers - even if you don't see everything in a particular scene, you still feel that every little detail has been met.
John Lasseter
#19. This is what I always tell my filmmakers-you have to do tons of research, because you don't know where the inspiration is going come from.
John Lasseter
#20. Disney Infinity gives you the ability to be creative in a way that nobody's ever seen before.
John Lasseter
#21. I believe that, by directing, it makes me a better executive as well.
John Lasseter
#22. I do what I do because of Walt Disney. Goofy. Mickey Mouse. I never forgot how their films entertained me.
John Lasseter
#23. We use shorts at the studio extensively to develop talent. I always love to give opportunities for young story people, animators, layout people something like that to take the next step up in their career and try things out.
John Lasseter
#24. I love 3-D. I have been a big fan of 3-D for a long, long time. I took my 1988 wedding pictures in 3-D!
John Lasseter
#25. The hardest thing to get is true emotion. I always believe you need to earn that with the audience. You can't just tell them, 'Ok, be sad now.'
John Lasseter
#26. 'Cars' was about Lightning McQueen learning to slow down and to enjoy life. The journey is the reward.
John Lasseter
#27. It's the nature of Hollywood that there are the people in power and the people who tell them what they want them to hear.
John Lasseter
#28. To me, I would much rather be part of a healthy industry than being the only player in a dead industry.
John Lasseter
#29. Art challenges technology, but technology inspires the art.
John Lasseter
#30. Pixar films are not realistic. They are believable for the worlds we are creating.
John Lasseter
#31. What's fun about the story development at Pixar is it's a journey. You don't just write a script and then that's the movie you make. It's just constant evolution and being open to that and that collaboration with the voice actors and with the artists and animators at Pixar.
John Lasseter
#32. I don't really think of myself as a businessman at all. That's why I have the 'chief creative officer' role.
John Lasseter
#33. In overseeing both Disney and Pixar Animation, each studio has a unique culture.
John Lasseter
#34. The Walt Disney Animation studio is the studio that Walt Disney started himself in 1923, and it's never stopped and never closed its doors and never stopped making animation, and it keeps going as kind of the heart and soul of the company.
John Lasseter
#36. One of the big moments of my life was watching 'Star Wars' on its opening weekend in Hollywood. I was watching all these people enjoy this film, and I thought: animation can do this.
John Lasseter
#37. When you set out to really entertain adults as well as kids, your audience is basically anybody who is breathing.
John Lasseter
#39. I always loved the idea of a spy movie and part of it came from my personal love of spy movies. It started when I was growing up as a little kid in the 60s.
John Lasseter
#40. I am, by nature, an honest person. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. There is no 'behind closed doors' with me.
John Lasseter
#41. I am so proud that 'Up' is Pixar's 10th film. I think it's the funniest film that we've ever made and also one of the most beautiful.
John Lasseter
#42. Slice open one of my veins and cartoons will pour out; open another vein and you'll get a flood of motor oil.
John Lasseter
#43. My mother was a high school arts teacher, so I was always surrounded by the arts.
John Lasseter
#44. I love the work of Hayao Miyazaki. 'My Neighbor Totoro' and 'Castle in the Sky' are two of the great films that he's made that I just love.
John Lasseter
#45. In an animated film you can do whatever you want, but that doesn't mean you should do everything you want.
John Lasseter
#46. Every animator is really an actor performing in slow motion, living the character a drawing at a time.
John Lasseter
#47. I love the Sonoma wine community. It's like Pixar - nothing competitive, only supportive. They're always rooting for you.
John Lasseter
#50. Directing is one of my favourite things to do because I love telling stories and I love working with the individual artists and it's something that I really missed.
John Lasseter
#51. I was born in 1957, so when I was a kid, there wasn't anything called a video game. When 'Pong' came out, it was awesome.
John Lasseter
#52. Fortunately for me, I'm married to an amazing woman - Nancy Lasseter - who is wise enough not to let me buy every car I want. If I was single, I would be living in a very small apartment and renting a warehouse full of cool cars.
John Lasseter
#53. I've noticed with my own kids, it seems like they have so much more homework than I did.
John Lasseter
#54. Of all studios that should be doing 2-D animation, it should be Disney.
John Lasseter
#55. Never in the history of cinema has a medium entertained an audience. It's what you do with the medium.
John Lasseter
#56. When you make these films, they become like your children. But at a certain point, they don't belong to you anymore; they belong to the world.
John Lasseter
#57. At Pixar, good ideas may be cut from a film, but they are never forgotten.
John Lasseter
#58. I do what I do because of Walt Disney - his films and his theme park and his characters and his joy in entertaining.
John Lasseter
#59. I'm a big fan of pantomime storytelling, being an animator.
John Lasseter
#60. A gem of a short film has a sense of pure joy in animation that is different from anything you see in a feature film.
John Lasseter
#61. I was mentored by great Disney animators at the end of their careers.
John Lasseter
#62. I've got Disney blood running through my veins.
John Lasseter
#63. Growing up, my favorite TV show was 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.', hands down.
John Lasseter
#64. Every young person gets so excited about new software packages and new technology.
John Lasseter
#65. Sure, they were simple desk lamps with only a minimal amount of movement, but you could immediately tell that Luxo Jr. was a baby, and that the big one was his mother. In that short little film, computer animation went from a novelty to a serious tool for filmmaking.
John Lasseter
#66. One of the fun things about play is making up stories ...
John Lasseter
#67. Sunday, for me, is all about being home with the family with no plans.
John Lasseter
#68. There's never a wrong idea. You just keep throwing stuff out and inevitably there are elements of different things that inspire a character or environment.
John Lasseter
#71. Everything I do and everything Pixar does is based on a simple rule: Quality is the best business plan, period.
John Lasseter
#72. One of the things about animation is it's so expensive to do the animation, that you can't produce coverage. You only have one chance to make every shot.
John Lasseter
#73. As a filmmaker, I'm very collaborative. I don't pretend to know everything that is needed to make a movie. What I like to do is get together with a group of people, starting with developing the story and bounce around ideas.
John Lasseter
#74. Animation is the one type of movie that really does play for the entire audience. Our challenge is to make stories that connect for kids and adults.
John Lasseter
#75. Pixar is not about computers, it's about people.
John Lasseter
#76. For me, personally, I will always do G-rated films, which the world needs more of.
John Lasseter
#77. Probably more than any other movie we've made here at Pixar, 'Up' was the one we were the most nervous about.
John Lasseter
#80. Take any movie with an actor you like. Turn your head and just listen to the performance. In some cases, the physical presence remains as strong when you can't see the actor, when it's just the voice.
John Lasseter
#81. I never quite understood why Disney hadn't made a sincere fairy tale since 'Beauty and the Beast.'
John Lasseter
#82. Walt Disney had always tried to get more dimension in his animation and when I saw these tapes, I thought, This is it! This is what Walt was waiting for! But when I looked around, nobody at the studio at the time was even halfway interested in it.
John Lasseter
#83. I believe in research you cannot do enough research; believability comes out of what's real.
John Lasseter
#84. Soon I learned that the worse the puns and jokes, the funnier they could be, if you knew how to deliver them.
John Lasseter
#85. 'Cars' is a really personal story for me because, first of all, I grew up in Los Angeles - the car crazy capital.
John Lasseter
#86. When you can have a character that the audience likes from the beginning, but then you put them in a situation where they grow - I think that gives it a lot of heart.
John Lasseter
#87. We make the kind of movies we like to watch. I love to laugh. I love to be amazed by how beautiful it is. But I also love to be moved to tears. There's lots of heart in our films.
John Lasseter
#88. Walt Disney always said, 'For every laugh, there should be a tear.' I believe in that.
John Lasseter
#89. Every technology that comes into filmmaking is first a gimmick. Think about sound with 'The Jazz Singer' or the first colour or surround sound - it takes a while for filmmakers to understand how to use it.
John Lasseter
#91. Today, among little girls especially, princesses and the romanticised ideal they represent - finding the man of your dreams - have a limited shelf life.
John Lasseter
#92. At Pixar, we do sequels only when we come up with a great idea, and we always strive to be different than the original.
John Lasseter
#93. A good part of my leadership skills is crafted from learning from experiences early in my career that were not positive experiences.
John Lasseter
#94. I always felt a little bit like a little kid that's never grown up in the world of adults.
John Lasseter
#95. When you take something that's inert, and through motion, give it life, make it appear to be alive, living, breathing thinking and having emotions, that's animation. But when you take something that's live-action, and move a part of it, that's a special effect.
John Lasseter
#96. There was a period of time when they estimated the two biggest stars in Hollywood were Charlie Chaplin and Mickey Mouse.
John Lasseter
#97. The greatest bad guys, you understand where they're coming from. They believe they're doing the right thing. Sometimes it's for greed, sometimes it's for other reasons, but they are what they call the center of good. They always believe they're doing the right thing.
John Lasseter
#98. If you've seen 'Spirited Away', 'Spirited Away' is set in a very, very Japanese sensibility. And so, to Japanese audiences, when Sen would walk up, the main character, and look at this big building with a flag on it with Japanese writing on it, everyone in Japan would know what that is.
John Lasseter
#99. Winnie the Pooh and his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood are among the most entertaining and beloved characters ever animated by Disney.
John Lasseter
#100. Pixar has invented much of computer animation as it's known today, and I've been very lucky to be the first traditional animator to work with computer animation.
John Lasseter
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