Top 35 Ralph Bakshi Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The rise of anime had to happen. If the Japanese could tell better American stories, it would go through the roof. They still tell stories which are very much oriental. I take my hat off to them.”

— Ralph Bakshi

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

2. “Lord of the Rings made me realize that I’m not interested in doing anyone else’s work.”

— Ralph Bakshi

3. “Wizards was my homage to Tolkien in the American idiom. I had read Tolkien, understood Tolkien, and wanted to do a sort of fantasy for American kids, and that was Wizards.”

— Ralph Bakshi

4. “They say I’m a revolutionary, but they’re all wrong.”

— Ralph Bakshi

5. “One of the best animated films I’ve seen come out of Disney was the Tarzan movie. I wasn’t crazy about the story or the design on Tarzan’s face, but the traditional animation was spectacular.”

— Ralph Bakshi

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

6. “Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.”

— Ralph Bakshi

7. “What’s most important in animation is the emotions and the ideas being portrayed. I’m a great believer of energy and emotion.”

— Ralph Bakshi

8. “It’s curtains for you, Mighty Mouse! This gun is so futuristic that even I don’t know how it works!”

— Ralph Bakshi

9. “I had the X rating on my films. Now they do as much on The Simpsons as I got an X rating for Fritz the Cat.”

— Ralph Bakshi

10. “I would like to have the original ending to my Lord of the Rings instead of the one they released. In my original cut I had the victory at Helm’s Deep as the final sequence.”

— Ralph Bakshi

11. “Cartooning at its best is a fine art. I’m a cartoonist who works in the medium of animation, which also allows me to paint my cartoons.”

— Ralph Bakshi

12. “Live action writers will give you a structure, but who the hell is talking about structure? Animation is closer to jazz than some kind of classical stage structure.”

— Ralph Bakshi

13. “I’m from the East Coast. I love the city. I love the characters. I love the kind of people we are, the kind other people look at in amazement.”

— Ralph Bakshi

14. “Animation is tremendously resilient. Animation will recover, as art always recovers. There’s always cycles of good art.”

— Ralph Bakshi

15. “Every character in each of my movies is a different side of myself.”

— Ralph Bakshi

16. “Its all big money, high rent, high prices in New York City now. The poor people completely got rolled over. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It’s disgusting.”

— Ralph Bakshi

17. “I draw what I feel, which is no more than doing my job.”

— Ralph Bakshi

18. “All the old great companies were run by guys who knew what an animator meant, and guys who knew how to draw. All the companies today are run by executives.”

— Ralph Bakshi

19. “Someone’s been mean to you! Tell me who it is, so I can punch him tastefully.”

— Ralph Bakshi

20. “I animated 20 years at Terry Toons. It’s important to know that animators like pizza and a raise once in a while, and you’ve got to treat them with love.”

— Ralph Bakshi

21. “Look what Disney’s done to their animation department. There wasn’t an animator in charge of their animation unit!”

— Ralph Bakshi

22. “I wouldn’t leave Disney to do Disney.”

— Ralph Bakshi

23. “I separate cartooning, which is fun and wacky and soulful, from illustration, which is very well-drawn and extremely uptight to look at. There’s a difference. I’m a cartoonist.”

— Ralph Bakshi

Featured in: Fun Quotes

24. “Painting pictures didn’t make me a lot of money. I have to eat.”

— Ralph Bakshi

25. “Sweetheart, I’m the biggest ripped-off cartoonist in the history of the world, and that’s all I’m going to say.”

— Ralph Bakshi

26. “I am not interested in slickness for the sake of slickness.”

— Ralph Bakshi

27. “My movies continue to be found and be sold because there’s something going on in them.”

— Ralph Bakshi

28. “As an artist, I want to interpret my feelings – not run across the street and ask what my mother thinks.”

— Ralph Bakshi

29. “You cant second-guess yourself as a filmmaker.”

— Ralph Bakshi

30. “I’m the first to admit that I can’t be as good as Tolkien, and a movie can never be as good as Tolkien.”

— Ralph Bakshi

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

31. “Too many of Disney animators, and a lot try to emulate Disney, are trying to hit what they call quality levels. They’re boring mannerisms.”

— Ralph Bakshi

32. “I miss animation very passionately. Not continuously, but every once in a while I would die to do another film.”

— Ralph Bakshi

33. “Most of the animated films I watched, the emotions are all prepackaged like canned music, the hand actions, the sighs.”

— Ralph Bakshi

34. “I’m having the same problems today that I had when I first started, saying that outrageous adult animation works.”

— Ralph Bakshi

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

35. “My good films were independent and my bad films were not.”

— Ralph Bakshi