Top 100 Hayao Miyazaki Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Engineers turn dreams into reality.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

Featured in: Quotes About Reality

2. “Reality is for people that lack imagination.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

Featured in: Imagination Quotes

3. “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

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

— Hayao Miyazaki

5. “I would like to make a film to tell children “it’s good to be alive”.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

6. “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

7. “See with eyes unclouded by hate.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

8. “Do everything by hand, even when using the computer.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

9. “We each need to find our own inspiration. Sometimes it is not easy.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

10. “Life is a winking light in the darkness.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

11. “Many of my movies have strong female leads – brave, self-sufficient girls that don’t think twice about fighting for what they believe in 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

12. “I believe that fantasy in the meaning of imagination is very important. We shouldn’t stick too close to everyday reality but give room to the reality of the heart, of the mind, and of the imagination.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

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

— Hayao Miyazaki

14. “In order to grow your audience, you must betray their expectations.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

15. “I get inspiration from my everyday life.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

16. “Modern life is so thin and shallow and fake. I look forward to when developers go bankrupt, Japan gets poorer and wild grasses take over.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

17. “Animators can only draw from their own experiences of pain and shock and emotions.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

18. “Its not a story in which the characters grow up, but a story in which they draw on something already inside them, brought out by the particular circumstances. I want my young friends to live like that, and I think they, too, have such a wish.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

19. “Whenever someone creates something with all of their heart, then that creation is given a soul.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

20. “Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans. And that’s why the industry is full of otaku!”

— Hayao Miyazaki

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

— Hayao Miyazaki

22. “Airplanes are the most beautiful when they are in the air.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

23. “We get strength and encouragement from watching children.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

24. “Actually I think CGI has the potential to equal or even surpass what the human hand can do.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

25. “I’d like to see Manhattan underwater. I’d like to see when the human population plummets and there are no more high rises, because nobody’s buying them. I’m excited about that. Money and desire – all that is going to collapse, and wild green grasses are going to take over.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

26. “Children understand intuitively that the world they have been born into is not a blessed world.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

27. “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

28. “It would be wonderful if I could see the end of civilization during my lifetime.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

29. “I’m not going to make movies that tell children, “You should despair and run away”.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

30. “Humans have both the urge to create and destroy.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

31. “Virtual reality is a denial of reality. We need to be open to the powers of imagination, which brings something useful to reality. Virtual reality can imprison people.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

32. “If you’re going to retire, retire early.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

33. “There are so many ships in the animation sea that are computer driven, that I think we can have at least one that’s just a log raft that we can row by hand.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

34. “Nobody has the right to sit in judgment and decide what’s good or bad for you.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

35. “Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed. But still, you find reasons to keep living.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

36. “I myself become terrified of death when I am in a negative state of mind. But the thought of death ceases to bother me once I become productive.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

37. “Cut off a wolf’s head and it still has the power to bite.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

38. “The villains are all parts of me. For years I’ve been wondering what it would be like if all those negative elements were forced onto the main character’s side. I can understand a character with that kind of anger.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

39. “In our work, the question is, how much you absorb from others. So for me, creativity, is really like a relay race. As children we are handed a baton. Rather than passing it onto the next generation as is, first we need to digest it and make it our own.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

40. “When I start creating a villain, I start liking the villain and so the villain is not really evil.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

41. “Since I am a person who starts work without clear knowledge of a storyline, every single scene is a pivotal scene.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

42. “Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

43. “The single difference between films for children and films for adults is that in films for children, there is always the option to start again, to create a new beginning. In films for adults, there are no ways to change things. What happened, happened.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

44. “When I say I get inspiration from my real life, I think of my real life as extending about 300 meters radius around me. So what I see in that area is what inspires me.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

45. “I make films as a business, not as a cultural endeavor.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

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

— Hayao Miyazaki

47. “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

48. “You should despair and run away.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

49. “Plants exist in the weather and light rays that surround them – waving in the wind, shimmering in the sunlight. I am always puzzling over how to draw such things.”

— Hayao Miyazaki

50. “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