Quotes from Phil Lord

As the son of a Cuban refugee and cousin and nephew to many Cubans on the island, I cringe when Americans visit Cuba for a fun island vacation.

There have been funny sequels, but I don't know if there have been that many that feel like they're - you know - they're just as great a movie to watch, just as fun an experience but different.

I apologize for the song 'Everything Is Awesome.'

I wish we were smart enough that, every time we had an idea for a script, that it was great right off the bat.

That might be my epitaph: 'It wasn't as bad as I thought. Here lies Phil Lord.'

You can't play not to lose. You kind of have to put your ego aside and accept the fact that careers are long, and there's gonna be stuff people like and stuff that people don't like, and you try to get better every time, and always put something out that you're proud of. And let the chips fall where they may.

Some people survived the neolithic age by being brave, others by being cowardly and smart.

That's the beauty of the animation process: It takes so long, you have so many chances to improve it.

'Zorn' goes to some pretty ridiculous places, but the real comedy is coming from these little observations about life that are not as outlandish as some of the bigger moves in the story. This is a guy who has magical relics and fights weird monsters and is also dealing with very basic work and family things.

You need to make things and not be so precious about whether they're any good or not. Because I have a secret for you: they're not good. They're flawed, and you need to find out what the flaws are as fast as possible.

In animation, you do so much planning ahead of time; it has to be so precise.

The hardest thing to do with an animated movie is to not make it feel synthetic: to feel like it's handmade, where you can sense the human hand in it.

A sense of humour is never a handicap.

I'm a big 'Omega Man' fan because of how insane he seems, just driving around in that car really fast. It has, like, a very strange tone to it.

We are so aware of how silly our movies are as we're making them.

I'm a big believer in the transformative, exponential power of art, like a reverse pyramid scheme.

It's easy to forget that when you take out all the shark stuff, 'Jaws' is a really beautiful human drama.

We try not to have any vanity or judgment about genre or type of film.

Seriously, if 'Superbad' doesn't happen, I don't think 'Jump Street' ever happens.

I wish we had fewer bad words in 'Jump Street.' That would probably be better.

You need pencil miles to be a great artist, animator, or filmmaker, and the sooner you start making mistakes, the quicker you learn.

You always risk people misunderstanding you when you say anything.

Batman is the ultimate in white people problems. It's like, 'Oh, I'm so rich and handsome, and women like me, and... something about my parents!'

I wish I could remember people's names. I'm supposed to remember so many.