“I am interested in entertaining people, in bringing pleasure, particularly laughter, to others, rather than being concerned with ‘expressing’ myself with obscure creative impressions.”
“We are not trying to entertain the critics. I’ll take my chances with the public.”
“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”
“All cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration, caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable.”
“When you’re curious, you find lots of interesting things to do. And one thing it takes to accomplish something is courage.”
“I don’t like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It’s just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess.”
“We allow no geniuses around our Studio.”
“Movies can and do have tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood.”
“I never called my work an ‘art’ It’s part of show business, the business of building entertainment.”
“I am not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any other motion picture company.”
“Whenever I go on a ride, I’m always thinking of what’s wrong with the thing and how it can be improved.”
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
“Laughter is America’s most important export.”
“People still think of me as a cartoonist, but the only thing I lift a pen or pencil for these days is to sign a contract, a check, or an autograph.”
“Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have the children’s approach to life. They’re people who don’t give a hang what the Joneses do. You see them at Disneyland every time you go there. They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures, and they have a degree of contentment with what life has brought – sometimes it isn’t much, either.”
“The era we are living in today is a dream of coming true.”
“There is more treasure n books than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island and at the bottom of the Spanish Main … and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.”
“Your dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.”
“Or heritage and ideals, our code and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.”
“We allow no geniuses around our Studio.”
“Movies can and do have tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood.”
“I never called my work an ‘art’ It’s part of show business, the business of building entertainment.”
“I am not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any other motion picture company.”
“Whenever I go on a ride, I’m always thinking of what’s wrong with the thing and how it can be improved.”
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
“Laughter is America’s most important export.”
“People still think of me as a cartoonist, but the only thing I lift a pen or pencil for these days is to sign a contract, a check, or an autograph.”
“Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have the children’s approach to life. They’re people who don’t give a hang what the Joneses do. You see them at Disneyland every time you go there. They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures, and they have a degree of contentment with what life has brought – sometimes it isn’t much, either.”
“The era we are living in today is a dream of coming true.”
“There is more treasure n books than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island and at the bottom of the Spanish Main … and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.”
“Your dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.”
“Or heritage and ideals, our code and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.”
“Crowded classrooms and halfday sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest national resource – the minds of our children.”
“You reach a point where you don’t work for money.”
“Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.”
“I have no use for people who throw there weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous.”
“Adults are interested if you don’t play down to the little 2 or 3 year olds or talk down. I don’t believe in talking down to children. I don’t believe in talking down to any certain segment. I like to kind of just talk in a general way to the audience. Children are always reaching.”
“A man should never neglect his family for business.”
“I believe in being an modivator.”
On Mickey Mouse
“I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.”
“Mickey Mouse is, to me, a symbol of independence. He was a means to an end.”
“When people laugh at Mickey Mouse, it’s because he’s so human; and that is the secret of his popularity.”
“He popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.”
“Somehow I can’t believe there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C’s. They are Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy and the greatest of these is Confidence. When you believe a thing, believe it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.”
“I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along withou t it.”
“When we consider a project, we really study it–not just the surface idea, but everything about it. And when we go into that new project, we believe in it all the way. We have confidence in our ability to do it right. And we work hard to do the best possible job.”
“Born of necessity, the little fellow literally freed us of immediate worry. He provided the means for expanding our organization to its present dimensions and for extending the medium cartoon animation towards new entertainment levels. He spelled production liberation for us.”
“We felt that the public, and especially the children, like animals that are cute and little. I think we are rather indebted to Charlie Chaplin for the idea. We wanted something appealing, and we thought of a tiny bit of a mouse that would have something of the wistfulness of Chaplin a little fellow trying to do the best he could.”
“The life and ventures of Mickey Mouse have been closely bound up with my own personal and professional life. It is understandable that I should have sentimental attachment for the little personage who played so big a part in the course of Disney Productions and has been so happily accepted as an amusing friend wherever films are shown around the world. He still speaks for me and I still speak for him.”
On Disneyland
“To all that come to this happy place: welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America… with hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”
“Biggest problem? Well, I’d say it’s been my biggest problem all my life. MONEY. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true. From the very start it was a problem. Getting the money to open Disneyland. About seventeen million it took. And we had everything mortgaged including my personal insurance.”
“It’s no secret that we were sticking just about every nickel we had on the chance that people would really be interested in something totally new and unique in the field of entertainment.”
“I don’t want the public to see the world they live in while they’re in the Park (Disneyland). I want to feel they’re in another world.”
“When we opened Disneyland, a lot of people got the impressions that it was a getrichquick thing, but they didn’t realize that behind Disneyland was this great organization that I built here at the Studio, and they all got into it and we were doing it because we loved to do it.”
“We did it (Disneyland), in the knowledge that most of the people I talked to thought it would be a financial disaster – closed and forgotten within the first year.”
“I first saw the site for Disneyland back in 1953, In those days it was all flat land – no rivers, no mountains, no castles or rocket ships – just orange groves, and a few acres of walnut trees.”
“It’s something that will never be finished. Something that I can keep developing…and adding to.”
“Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.”
“We believed in our idea – a family park where parents and children could have fun together.”
“Disneyland is a work of love. We didn’t go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.”
“Disneyland is the star, everything else is in the supporting role.”
“Disneyland is a show.”
“It has that thing – the imagination, and the feeling of happy excitement I knew when I was a kid.”