The Quotable Walt Disney (Disney Editions Deluxe)

Just discovered this amazing book of Quotes from Walt Disney compiled by Dave Smith.

Walt Disney's animated characters moved across the silver screen with the grace of fine actors. His vision revolutionized everything from television to theme parks. But this book is perhaps the preeminent aspect of his legacy his philosophies and his dreams.

Each anecdote lends sometimes simple, sometimes profound observations on life and all of its triumphs and defeats. The quotes in this charming volume range from the well known to the obscure. Within the pages of Quotable Walt Disney are anecdotes that not only teach important lessons but also illuminate one of America's greatest creative geniuses. It is the perfect book to uplift, enlighten, and inspire.

“Because the eye is the most sensitive and dependable of our sense organs, the motion picture offers the widest, direct avenue to our emotions.

 Whereas the still picture can suggest only a fragment of fact or fiction, the cartoon-in-motion is without limit in communicating ideas, events, and human relations.”

  “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.”

  “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.”

  “Nothing in a lifetime of picture making has been more exciting and personally satisfactory than delving into the wonders, the mysteries, the magnificent  commonplaces of life around us and passing them on via the screen.”

  “‘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 [with the Alice Comedies] 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.”

  “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.”

“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.”

  “Cartoon animation offers a medium of storytelling and visual entertainment, which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the  world.”

  “I started, actually, to make my first animated cartoon in 1920. Of course, they were very crude things then and I used sort of little puppet  things.”

“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.”

  “When people laugh at Mickey Mouse it’s because he’s so human; and that is the secret of his popularity.”

  “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.”

  “I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing that it was all started by a mouse.”

“When we opened Disneyland, a lot of people got the impression that it was a get-rich-quick 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.”

  “Disneyland is a thing that I can keep molding and shaping. It’s a three-dimensional thing to play with. But when I say, ‘play with it,’ I  don’t mean that. Everything I do I keep a practical eye toward its appeal to the public.”

  “Disneyland would be a world of Americans, past and present, seen through the eyes of my imagination—a place of warmth and nostalgia, of illusion and color and delight.”

  “When I started on Disneyland, my wife used to say, ‘But why do you want to build an amusement park? They’re so dirty.’ I told her that was  just the point mine wouldn’t be.”