PREFACE During his long career, Walt Disney frequently commented on his philosophies of life, his ideals, his dreams, and his hopes for a better world. This book is a collection of those quotations attributed to Walt. His words have been gleaned from publications, productions, and interviews over the breadth of his amazing career. Some are simple nuggets of homespun wisdom, while others are statements of deep insight gained while he crafted the enchanting films, television shows, and unparalleled experiences that are so beloved by audiences the world over.
Walt once said, “In order to make good in your chosen task, it’s important to have someone you want to do it for. The greatest moments in life are not concerned with selfish achievements but rather with the things we do for the people we love and esteem, and whose respect we need.” So this book is dedicated to the esteemed founder of the Walt Disney Archives, Dave Smith, who gathered and edited the first book of Walt’s quotes and left us an incredible road map to follow.
It has been compiled for those whom we at the Walt Disney Archives are most grateful for . . . those discerning souls who are eager to learn more about the man who made such an incredible, positive impact on his own time and on the future yet to be— Walt Disney, the Showman of the World.
—Rebecca Cline, Director, Walt Disney Archives
February 2023
Chapter 1 on films and animation “The motion picture has become a necessity of life, a part of our balanced existence. It is not a negligible luxury. People are always going to demand and enjoy movies in the theater. Perhaps not as exclusively as they did when public amusements were more limited. Patronage will depend more than ever upon what we put on the screen. And especially on how well we understand the needs and desires of our younger customers. For their favor we must compete as never before.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“The business has grown continuously through these years, although at times the road was rocky. But I don’t know of any other entertainment medium that can give to the millions of families the world over more value than the motion picture.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“So, I tried to get a job in Hollywood, working in the picture business so I could learn it. I would have liked to have been a director, or any part of that, but there was nothing open, so before I knew it I had my drawing board out and started back at the cartoon.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“I started, actually, to make my first animated cartoons in 1920. Of course, they were very crude things then and I used sort of little puppet things.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“Well, in order to crack the field, I said, ‘I’ve got to get something a little unique,’ you see. Now they had the clown out of the inkwell who played with the live people. So I reversed it. I took the live person and put him into the cartoon field. I said, ‘that’s a new twist.’ And it sold. I was surprised myself.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“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.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“To captivate our varied and worldwide audience of all ages, the nature and treatment of the fairy tale, the legend, the myth has to be elementally simple. Good and evil, the antagonists of all great drama in some guise, must be believably personalized. The moral ideals common to all humanity must be upheld. The victories must not be too easy. Strife to test valor is still and always will be the basic ingredient of the animated tale as of all screen entertainments.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“Speaking for the one field which I feel definitely qualified to comment on, I fully believe the animated picture will emerge as one of the greatest mediums, not only of entertainment but also of education.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“Art is never conscious. Things that have lived were seldom planned that way. If you follow that line, you’re on the wrong track. We don’t even let the word ‘art’ be used around the studio. If anyone begins to get arty, we knock them down. What we strive for is entertainment.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“This is not ‘the cartoon medium.’ It should not be limited to cartoons. We have worlds to conquer here . . . we’re doing beautiful things with beautiful music. We’re doing comic things, fantastic things, and it can’t be all the same—it’s an experimental thing, and I’m willing to experiment on it. We’ve got more in this medium than making people laugh—we love to make people laugh, but I think we can do both. . . . the beauty we can get from controlled color and the music and everything we use here will be worth it . . . Excuse me if I get a little riled up on this stuff . . . It’s going to take time to get ourselves up to the point where we can really get some humor in our stuff, rather than just belly laughs; and get the beauty in it, rather than just a flashy postcard. It takes time to do that, but I think we will . . .”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“To translate the world’s great fairy tales, thrilling legends, stirring folk tales into visual theatrical presentations and to get back warm response of audiences in many lands has been for me an experience and a lifetime satisfaction beyond all value.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“Animation is different from other parts. Its language is the language of caricature. Our most difficult job was to develop the cartoon’s unnatural but seemingly natural anatomy for humans and animals.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“I take great pride in the artistic development of cartoons. Our characters are made to go through emotions which a few short years ago would have seemed impossible to secure with a cartoon character. Some of the action produced in the finished cartoon of today is more graceful than anything possible for a human to do.”
—Walt Disney
“To think six years ahead—even two or three—in this business of making animated cartoon features, it takes calculated risk and much more than blind faith in the future of theatrical motion pictures. I see motion pictures as a family founded institution closely related to the life and labor of millions of people. Entertainment such as our business provides has become a necessity, not a luxury. Curiously, it is the part which offers us the greatest reassurance about the future in the animation field. Fantasy, when properly done in the one medium best adapted to its nature, need never stale for the family taste.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“We are not trying to entertain the critics. I’ll take my chances with the public.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“Movie makers are often too introverted about their production. They tend to build up myths about audiences and to prattle glibly about shifting public taste and its unpredictables. In considering audiences and our professional function, remember one thing: Americans are a sociable folk; we like to enjoy ourselves in crowds, at sports arenas, at picnics, fairs and carnivals, at concerts, and at the theater. Above all, we like to laugh together—even at our own shortcomings. I don’t like to kid myself about the intelligence and taste of audiences. They are made up of my neighbors, people I know and meet every day. Folks I trade with, go to church with, vote with, compete in business with, help build and preserve a nation with.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“Public taste in amusement has changed very decidedly since the early days when the motion picture was a toy, a novelty; it has changed as much in animation as in live-action cinema offerings.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“Before sitting down to count my blessings, I want to make you a promise. I promise we won’t let this great honor you have paid us tonight go to our head—we have too many projects for the future to take time out for such a thing. On top of that, after forty-some-odd years of ups and downs in this crazy business of ours, we know too well—you are only as good as your next picture.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“Films stimulate children to read books on many subjects.”
—Walt Disney
• • •
“We have created characters and animated them in the dimension of depth, revealing through them to our perturbed world that the things we have in common far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us.”
—Walt Disney
Copyright © 2023 by Disney. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
