Quotes from Hayao Miyazaki

Yet, even amidst the hatred and carnage, life is still worth living. It is possible for wonderful encounters and beautiful things to exist.

In this world of ours, the sparrow must live like a hawk if he is to fly at all.

It seems like everything that we see perceived in the brain before we actually use our own eyes, that everything we see is coming through computers or machines and then is being input in our brain cells. So that really worries me.

I find it pointless sitting in my house not working, though I like to go on extended vacations from time to time.

It would be wonderful if I could see the end of civilization during my lifetime.

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.

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

I don't intentionally make deep movies.

on the future of hand-drawn animation] I'm actually not that worried. I wouldn't give up on it completely. Once in a while there are strange, rich people who like to invest in odd things. You're going to have people in the corners of garages making cartoons to please themselves. And I'm more interested in those people than I am in big business.

Once you have met someone, you never really forget them.

See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good.

Problems begin the moment we're born. We're born with infinite possibilities, only to give up on one after another. To choose one thing means to give up another. That's inevitable. But what can you do? That's what it is to live.

In this world of ours, the sparrow must live like a hawk if he is to fly at all.

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.

People who design machines and airplanes {or buildings}, no matter how much they believe that what they do is good, the winds of time eventually turn them into tools of industrial civilization. They're cursed dreams. Animation, too. Beautiful yet cursed dreams.

Producing an animation series merely to fill time slots in the broadcast schedule is like generating cultural pollution.

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

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

Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed. But still, you find reasons to keep living.

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.

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

Whenever someone creates something with all of their heart, then that creation is given a soul.

In my grandparents' time, it was believed that spirits existed everywhere...in trees, rivers, insects, wells, anything... 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.

first don't panic, second don't panic and third DID I MENTCHIN NOT TO PANIC?!