42+ Of The Greatest Hayao Miyazaki Quotes About Life & Anime

Hayao Miyazaki quotes about the following topics:

Anime
Art
Life
Inspiration

Hayao Miyazaki is the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, a famous and globally successful anime studio. Argued to be one of the most successful ever created.

Miyazaki’s also a Japanese animator, author and Mangaka who played a role in:

My Neighbor Totoro.
Kiki’s delivery service.
Castle In The Sky.

And many more.

Here’s the BEST quotes from the legend himself.

1. Hayao Miyazaki Quotes

“Once you have met someone, you never really forget them.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“I get inspiration from my everyday life.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“You may not like what’s happening, but just accept it, and let’s try to live together. Even if you feel angry, let’s be patient and endure, let’s try to live together. I’ve realized that this is the only way forward.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“Is someone different at age 18 or 60? I believe one stays the same.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“If you’re going to retire, retire early.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“Logic is using the front part of the brain, that’s all. But you can’t make a film with logic. Or if you look at it differently, everybody can make a film with logic. But my way is to not use logic.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“In the past, humans hesitated when they took lives, even non-human lives. But society had changed, and they no longer felt that way. As humans grew stronger, I think that we became quite arrogant, losing the sorrow of ‘we have no other choice.’ I think that in the essence of human civilization, we have the desire to become rich without limit, by taking the lives of other creatures.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“Humans have both the urge to create and destroy.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“I don’t like games. You’re robbing the precious time of children to be children. They need to be in touch with the real world more.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“The future is clear. It’s going to fall apart. What’s the use in worrying? It’s inevitable.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“We get strength and encouragement from watching children.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it—I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it is rotten. This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics is hopeless.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“AI animation is, “is an insult to life itself.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“Always believe in yourself. Do this and no matter where you are, you will have nothing to fear.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“I never read reviews. I’m not interested. But I value a lot the reactions of the spectators.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“Life is a winking light in the darkness.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“If [hand-drawn animation] is a dying craft, we can’t do anything about it. Civilization moves on. Where are all the fresco painters now? Where are the landscape artists? What are they doing now? The world is changing. I have been very fortunate to be able to do the same job for 40 years. That’s rare in any era.” – 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.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“There has never been a work of art created which didn’t somehow reflect its own time.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“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.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“Do everything by hand, even when using the computer.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“Young people are surrounded by virtual things. Animators can only draw from their own experiences of pain and shock and emotions.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“The creation of a single world comes from a huge number of fragments and chaos.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“The running of surging masses on fire with anger, the running of a child doing his best to hold back tears until he reaches his house, the running of a heroine who has forsaken everything but the desire to flee—being able to show wonderful ways of running, running that expresses the very act of living, the pulse of life, across the screen would give me enormous delight. I dream of someday coming across a work that requires that kind of running.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live—if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“I like the expression ‘lost possibilities.’ To be born means being compelled to choose an era, a place, and a life. To exist here, now, means to lose the possibility of being countless other potential selves. For example, I might have been the captain of a pirate ship, sailing with a lovely princess by my side. It means giving up this universe, giving up other potential selves. There are selves which are lost possibilities, and selves that could have been, and this is not limited just to us but to the people around us and even to Japan itself.

Yet once born,there is no turning back. And I think that’s exactly why the fantasy worlds of cartoon movies so strongly represent our hopes and yearnings. They illustrate a world of lost possibilities for us.”- Hayao Miyazaki

“My process is thinking, thinking and thinking—thinking about my stories for a long time.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“In order to grow your audience, you must betray their expectations.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“I am an animator. I feel like I’m the manager of a animation cinema factory. I am not an executive. I’m rather like a foreman, like the boss of a team of craftsmen. That is the spirit of how I work.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“I do believe in the power of story. I believe that stories have an important role to play in the formation of human beings, that they can stimulate, amaze, and inspire their listeners.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“I try to dig deep into the well of my subconscious. At a certain moment in that process, the lid is opened and very different ideas and visions are liberated. With those I can start making a film. But maybe it’s better that you don’t open that lid completely, because if you release your subconscious it becomes really hard to live a social or family life.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“I don’t have the story finished and ready when we start work on a film. I usually don’t have the time. So the story develops when I start drawing storyboards. The production starts very soon thereafter, while the storyboards are still developing. We never know where the story will go but we just keeping working on the film as it develops. It’s a dangerous way to make an animation film and I would like it to be different, but unfortunately, that’s the way I work and everyone else is kind of forced to subject themselves to it.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“All my films are all my children.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“When I have the time, I like to go up to a cabin I have in the mountains. Sometimes friends will come by to visit me, but I also like to spend time alone. It reinvigorates me, hiking those mountain trails. After working on a film, it usually takes half a year for me to recover my mental and physical balance. I have to set aside time to recuperate. I guess when you add it all up, I’m not really working that many hours.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“Many of my movies have strong female leads—brave, self-sufficient girls that don’t think twice about fighting for what they believe with all their heart. They’ll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a savior. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“I can’t stand modern movies. The images are too weird and eccentric for me.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“Sometimes I test myself saying, ‘If I get a death sentence if I don’t make this movie, would I still make this movie?” – Hayao Miyazaki

“The characters are born from repetition, from repeatedly thinking about them. I have their outline in my head. I become the character and as the character I visit the locations of the story many, many times. Only after that I start drawing the character, but again I do it many, many times, over and over. And I only finish just before the deadline.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“I would like to make a film to tell children ‘it’s good to be alive.” – Hayao Miyazaki

“From that rooftop, what if you leapt onto the next roof, dashed over to that blue and green wall, jumped and climbed up the pipe, ran across the roof, and jumped to the next? You can, in animation. When you look from above, so many things reveal themselves to you. Maybe race along the concrete wall. Isn’t it fun to see things that way?” – Hayao Miyazaki

“If someone were to ask me what the most important thing is when creating a new animated work, my answer would be that you first have to know what you want to say with it. In other words, you have to have a theme. Surprisingly, perhaps, people sometimes overlook this basic fact of filmmaking and overemphasize technique instead. There are innumerable examples of people making films with a very high level of technique, but only a very fuzzy idea of what they really want to say. And after watching their films, viewers are usually completely befuddled. Yet when people who know what they want to say make films with a low level of technique, we still greatly appreciate the films because there is really something to them.” – Hayao Miyazaki

–

The Best Mob Psycho 100 Quotes You Need To See

26 Of The Most Powerful Ghost In The Shell Quotes That Are Timeless