"I just make what I like - warm and human stories, ones about historic characters and events, and about animals. If there is a secret, I guess it's that I never make the pictures too childish, but always try to get in a little satire of adult foibles." —Walt Disney

 
"Tomorrow will be better for as long as America keeps alive the ideals of freedom and a better life." —Walt Disney

"If anybody gets highbrow around the studio, out he goes." —Walt Disney

"The era we are living in today is a dream come true." —Walt Disney

"In this volatile business of ours, we can ill afford to rest on our laurels, even to pause in retrospect. Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future." —Walt Disney

"I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied with my work. I resent the limitations of my own imagination." —Walt Disney

 
"My business is making people, especially children, happy." —Walt Disney

"I do not want to make teaching films. If I did, I would create a separate organization. It is not higher education that interests me so much as general mass education." —Walt Disney

"I have never been interested in personal gain or profit. This business and this studio have been my entire life."
—Walt Disney

"To captivate our varied and worldwide audience of all ages, the nature and treatment of the fairy tale, the legend, the myth have to be elementary, 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 will always be the basic ingredient of the animated tale, as of all screen entertainments." —Walt Disney

"Sheer animated fantasy is still my first and deepest production impulse." —Walt Disney

"Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work it until it's done and done right." —Walt Disney

"Tomorrow will be better for as long as America keeps alive the ideals of freedom and a better life." —Walt Disney

 
"My fun is working on a project and solving the problems." —Walt Disney

"People look at me in many ways. They've said, 'The guy has no regard for money.' That is not true. I have had regard for money. It depends on who's saying that. Some people worship money as something you've got to have piled up in a big pile somewhere. I've only thought about money in one way, and that is to do something with it. I don't think there's a thing I own that I will ever get the benefit of except through doing things with it. I don't even want the dividends from the stock in the studio, because the government's going to take it away. I'd rather have that in (the company) working..." —Walt Disney

"Direct and easy communications — freedom of speech in all forms and in its broadest sense — has become vital to the very survival of a civilized humanity." —Walt Disney

"Of all the things I've done, the most vital is coordinating the talents of those who work for us and pointing them toward a certain goal." —Walt Disney

"A good ending is vital to a picture, the single most important element, because it is what the audience takes with them out of the theater." —Walt Disney

"There is nothing wrong with good schmaltz, nothing wrong with good heart... The critics think I'm kind of corny. Well, I am corny. As long as people respond to it, I'm okay." —Walt Disney

"Fantasy and reality often overlap." —Walt Disney

"I have watched constantly that in our work the highest moral and spiritual standards are upheld, whether my productions deal with fable or with stories of living action." —Walt Disney

"If anybody gets highbrow around the studio—out he goes." —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
"What seems real to the mind can be as important as any material fact. We live by the spirit and the imagination as well as by our senses. Cartoon animation can give fantasy the same reality as those things we can touch and see and hear." —Walt Disney

"Our part in things is to build along the lines we are known for, with happy family stories and comedies. I've never thought of this as art. It's part of show-business." —Walt Disney

 
"If I can't find a theme, I can't make a film anyone else will feel. I can't laugh at intellectual humor. I'm just corny enough to like to have a story hit me over the heart..." —Walt Disney

"No matter what the provocation, I never fire a man who is honestly trying to deliver a job. Few workers who become established at the Disney Studio ever leave voluntarily or otherwise, and many have been on the payroll all their working lives." —Walt Disney

"There are fashions in reading, even in thinking. You don't have to follow them unless you want to. On the other hand, watch out. Don't stick too closely to your favorite subject. That would keep you from adventuring into other fields. It's silly to build a wall around your interests." —Walt Disney

"All right I am corny, you know? But I think there are just about 140 million people in this country who are just as corny as I am, you know? I'm not a politician, I do it because I like it." —Walt Disney
"Part of the Disney success is our ability to create a believable world of dreams that appeals to all age groups. The kind of entertainment we create is meant to appeal to every member of the family." —Walt Disney

"You don't build it for yourself. You know what the people want and you build it for them." —Walt Disney

"Whatever we accomplish is due to the combined effort. The organization must be with you or you don't get it done... In my organization there is respect for every individual, and we all have a keen respect for the public."
—Walt Disney

On CalArts: "We've got to fight against bigness. If a school gets too large, you lose an intimacy with the students; they begin to feel they're just part of a big complex. I don't think you can create too well in a big plant. That's why I always tried to avoid bigness in the studio..." —Walt Disney

"I know different ways of looking at things. I have my stockholders, and I feel a very keen responsibility to the shareholders, but I feel that the main responsibility I have to them is to have the stock appreciate. And you only have it appreciate by reinvesting as much as you can back in the business. And that's what we've done... and that has been my philosophy on running the business." —Walt Disney

"We grew to our present size almost against ourselves. It was not a deliberately planned commercial venture in the sense that I sat down and said that we were going to make ourselves into a huge financial octopus. We evolved by necessity. We did not sit down and say to ourselves, 'How can we make a big pile of dough?' It just happened." —Walt Disney

"I wanted to retain my individuality. I was afraid of being hampered by studio policies. I knew if someone else got control, I would be restrained." —Walt Disney

"In this volatile business of ours, we can ill afford to rest on our laurels, even to pause in retrospect. Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future." —Walt Disney

"Why be a governor or senator when you can be king of Disneyland?" —Walt Disney

 
"You reach a point where you don't work for money." —Walt Disney

 
"Childishness? I think it's the equivalent of never losing your sense of humor. I mean, there's a certain something that you retain. It's the equivalent of not getting so stuffy that you can't laugh at others." —Walt Disney

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"The fun is in always building something. After it's built, you play with it awhile and then you're through. You see, we never do the same thing twice around here. We're always opening up new doors." —Walt Disney

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"No matter what the provocation, I never fire a man who is honestly trying to deliver a job. Few workers who become established at the Disney Studio ever leave voluntarily or otherwise, and many have been on the payroll all their working lives." —Walt Disney

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"I knew if this business was ever to get anywhere, if this business was ever to grow, it could never do it by having to answer to someone unsympathetic to its possibilities, by having to answer to someone with only one thought or interest, namely profits. For my idea of how to make profits has differed greatly from those who generally control businesses such as ours. I have blind faith in the policy that quality, tempered with good judgment and showmanship, will win against all odds." —Walt Disney

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"You know, the only way I've found to make these pictures is with animators. You can't seem to do it with accountants and bookkeepers." —Walt Disney

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"I've always been bored with just making money. I've wanted to do things; I wanted to build things, to get something going..." —Walt Disney

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"Anything that has the Disney name to it is something we feel responsible for." —Walt Disney

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"The span of years has not much altered my fundamental views of mass amusement. Experience has merely perfected the style and method and the techniques of presentation. My entertainment credo has not changed a whit. Strong combat and soft satire are in our story cores. Virtue triumphs over wickedness in our fables. Tyrannical bullies are routed or conquered by our good little people, human or animal. Basic morality is always deeply implicit in our screen legends. But they are never sappy or namby-pamby. And they never prate or preach. All are pitched toward the happy and satisfactory ending. There is no cynicism in me and there is none allowed in our work." —Walt Disney