John Lasseter Quotations

Sunday, for me, is all about being home with the family with no plans.

'Cars' was about Lightning McQueen learning to slow down and to enjoy life. The journey is the reward.

The art challenges the technology, and the technology inspires the art.

The magic of Disneyland, walking through the tunnel underneath the train station to Main Street, it just transports you to other places and other times.

Computers don't create computer animation any more than a pencil creates pencil animation. What creates computer animation is the artist.

My father pulled into Pearl Harbor four days after the bombing, and he said, everything was still burning. He said they never told the public how bad it was. It was really bad.

You can achieve all the things you want to do, but it's much better to do it with loved ones around you; family and friends, people that you care about that can help you on the way and can celebrate you, and you can enjoy the journey.

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.

The way the films look will never entertain an audience alone. It has to be in the service of a good story with great characters.

I loved animation and cartoons, even when it was not cool when you were in high school. I raced home to see the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Animation is the only thing I ever wanted to do in my whole life. I have no desire for live-action or anything else.

There was a period of time when they estimated the two biggest stars in Hollywood were Charlie Chaplin and Mickey Mouse.

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.

I don't believe that an animation studio should be an executive-driven studio.

People who get into animation tend to be kids. We don't have to grow up. But also, animators are great observers, and there's this childlike wonder and interest in the world, the observation of little things that happen in life.

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.

Every single Pixar film, at one time or another, has been the worst movie ever put on film. But we know. We trust our process. We don't get scared and say, 'Oh, no, this film isn't working.'

In overseeing both Disney and Pixar Animation, each studio has a unique culture.

'Cars' is a really personal story for me because, first of all, I grew up in Los Angeles - the car crazy capital.

If you're sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that's entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it's the storytelling. That's why we put so much importance on story. No amount of great animation will save a bad story.

A good part of my leadership skills is crafted from learning from experiences early in my career that were not positive experiences.

I can't tell you, as a parent, how it feels when the doctor tells you your child has diabetes. First off, you don't really know much about it. Then you discover there is no cure.

I've got Disney blood running through my veins.

Of all studios that should be doing 2-D animation, it should be Disney.

I believe in research you cannot do enough research; believability comes out of what's real.

In computer animation, every detail has to be thought out, designed, modeled, shaded, placed and lit. The more you add, the more computer memory you need.

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.

When I was a freshman in high school, I read a book about the making of Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty' called 'The Art of Animation.' It was this weird revelation for me, because I hadn't considered that people actually get paid to make cartoons.

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.

When you really study espionage movies, or spy movies, the beginnings are really set up to have, like, an amazing bit of action, but at the moment you're watching it, you have no idea why or what it's about.

When you're a director, you really live whatever you do.

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.

When Walt Disney was making his films, he trusted his instincts and made films for himself, but they appealed to everybody, not just kids.

Short films really helped me develop as a story teller, animator, and as a director.

Of all bugs, growing up I just loved the pill bugs. They roll up, you play with them, you wait for them to open up, and then when you touch them they roll up again. I just love that.

People want to be creatively satisfied, and having fun is such an important part of that.

Nobody pays attention to the way a person's shirt folds around his shoulder when they sit down, but if that shirt folded in an unusual way, you'd notice it.

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.

I would get so into playing as a kid that I'd lose track of time.

I am, by nature, an honest person. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. There is no 'behind closed doors' with me.

I am so proud to be part of this company... again.

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.

Car love is the sound of a throaty V-8 rumbling and revving, the acceleration throwing you back in the seat - especially when you get on a beautiful, winding road and the light's dappling through the trees.

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!

I love bringing the inanimate object to life.

I have loved automobiles and the world of racing for a long time and 'Cars' is a very personal story to me. This premiere event is the perfect way to debut our film to racing and movie enthusiasts.

I have motor oil running through my veins.

I have met a lot of top chefs around the world during my travels. Each one of them has said 'Ratatouille' is their favorite movie and the only movie that truly captures what they do.

Growing up, my favorite TV show was 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.', hands down.

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.

I always laugh at these companies that have these rules saying, 'You're only allowed to have this or that on your desk.' It's no fun to work at a place like that.

He has been a tremendous influence on my career and on most animators and animation directors around the world.

What I love about Goofy is the flesh on his cheeks. You can almost feel it.

Today, among little girls especially, princesses and the romanticised ideal they represent - finding the man of your dreams - have a limited shelf life.

For me, personally, I will always do G-rated films, which the world needs more of.

The only thing Steve Jobs has ever asked me in all the years we've been together and have been partners, the only thing he has ever asked me is: 'Make it great.'

I think the best movie ever made was 'Dumbo.'

I think that as I had children, I have five sons, and they got into video games and were the prime ages through the development of video games. It was so much fun seeing them play the games and seeing it through their eyes.

I think 'Disney Infinity' is exciting. It's hard to even call it a video game, because it's so different. What excites me about this is how it's going to put more and more of what happens in the game into the hands of the user; it's up to them. You can play it to where everything's laid out for you.

Pixar's short films convinced Disney that if the company could produce memorable characters within five minutes, then the confidence was there in creating a feature film with those abilities in story and character development.

Pixar is not about computers, it's about people.

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.

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.

Steve Jobs is like a brother to me and he's one of the founders of Pixar, and when the first iPad came out, I got one right away.

Stay at the end of the credits. I pulled out the stops on the credits.

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.

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.

I was mentored by great Disney animators at the end of their careers.

My brother liked sewing and sculpting and making things, and my sister sewed and painted and cooked and baked. She's a professional baker now and makes the most gorgeous sculpture-like cakes. She's the queen of wedding cakes in the Lake Tahoe area.

Winnie the Pooh and his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood are among the most entertaining and beloved characters ever animated by Disney.

You know, going to the movies has always been recession-proof. It's fairly cheap entertainment; it's classic escapism.

The press always tends to say these companies are competitors. They are missing the point. As a fan, I want to help the industry. I would love for every studio to produce a blockbuster so we can get more talented people in the industry. Competition to us is when a family walks up to the multiplex and all those titles are up there. I want everyone to be successful.

When you set out to really entertain adults as well as kids, your audience is basically anybody who is breathing.

Walt Disney always said, 'For every laugh, there should be a tear.' I believe in that.

We work very hard in all of the Pixar films to not make anything in the imagery that causes people to think of something other than the story.

When you go into the theatre and the lights dim, you want to entertain people from beginning to end. You want them to be swept up in your story, on the edge of their seats, unable to wait to see what happens next, be blown away and afterwards just go, 'Wow!'

With science, there is this culture of experimentation, and most of the time, those experiments fail.

When I started work with LucasArts Computer Division back in 1984, I went to the Palace of Fine Arts and saw the Festival of Animation for the first time. I loved the diverse collection of animated films the festival held.

'Bolt' was made by Walt Disney Animation Studios, not by Pixar.

Everything I do and everything Pixar does is based on a simple rule: Quality is the best business plan, period.

Every Pixar movie at one time was the worst motion picture ever made.

Every Pixar film, when we start developing the story, it takes about four years to make one of our films.

Every movie has three things you have to do - you have to have a compelling story that keeps people on the edge of their seats; you have to populate that story with memorable and appealing characters; and you have to put that story and those characters in a believable world. Those three things are so vitally important.

At Pixar, we've been huge fans of any new technology that makes the viewer experience of our movies better. Blu-ray is the best yet because the picture quality, especially for our movies, is unbelievable.

At Pixar, we do sequels only when we come up with a great idea, and we always strive to be different than the original.

At Pixar, 'Wall-E' was our ninth film, and they've all been successes - more than that, they've all really touched people. Everybody wonders, 'How do you do it?' Well, how do you not do it? You just work hard.

At Pixar, good ideas may be cut from a film, but they are never forgotten.

A simple rule of thumb is that the more geometric something is, ... the easier it is to reproduce on a computer. The more organic something is, the more difficult it is to reproduce on computer. And so, hence, 'Toy Story' was the perfect story for our first film -- man-made world, man-made environment, flat floors. 'A Bug's Life,' there is nothing geometric about this movie.

Even if I can't be in Los Angeles, I can be watching reels. I can be looking at the art direction.

I've noticed with my own kids, it seems like they have so much more homework than I did.

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.

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.

I've always been thinking in three dimensions, ever since I started working with computer animation in the early '80s.

Rotten Tomatoes is such a great website, in that it has one foot in the Internet world and one foot in the cinema world, and it keeps its grounding between them just perfectly.

Probably more than any other movie we've made here at Pixar, 'Up' was the one we were the most nervous about.

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.

Art challenges technology, but technology inspires the art.

You never hear of a live-action studio that has been making so-so films looking over at a studio that's making great movies and going, 'Oh, we see the difference - we're using a different camera.'

This guy is one of the greatest that's ever lived,

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.