Human beings will line up for miles to buy a bucket of catastrophes, but don't try selling sunshine and light - you'll go broke.
Once you have heard a strange audience burst into laughter at a film you directed, you realize what the word joy is all about.
I think that every enduring story that has expressions over multiple periods, that role of being the keeper of the integrity of the vision is a very important role.
I believe people leave a theater bonding with characters. Story is the vessel that carries character. Comedy is a very important component of expressing character.
It's interesting if you can talk about the large moments and also the small moments to understand the deepest complexities of a man by trying to imagine who they are.
The job of the writer is to look at where he is now and make some sort of emotional sense of it, not only for that moment but for years to come.
I'm not interested in blind optimism, but I'm very interested in optimism that is hard-won, that takes on darkness and then says, 'This is not enough.'
I think people are more apt to believe photographs, especially if it's something fantastic. They're willing to be more gullible. Sometimes they want fantasy.
I've said before: 'If you're going to earnestly sing a song around a campfire, you'd better be a Muppet!' Or else we're just not going to buy it.
I wouldn't be here if it weren't for 'Show Boat.' The kind of theater I chose to be involved in is completely a direct reflection of what 'Show Boat' made possible.
I remember when people actually wore coats and ties to theatre every night. They don't anymore. It's very different.
It's nice to stay up nights worrying about the material, and not about the investors who gave you $10 million to do your musical.
Everything can't be a postage-stamp-sized project. Everything can't be a chamber piece. Musicals aren't even meant to be that, or identified with it... It's none of it simple.
Within two hours of where I live, you have mountains and desert as location. I like the natural elements that abstract into light, texture, shape and shadow.
If you think that something worked and your directing partner doesn't think so, then maybe you have to re-think what you were doing.
I feel I'm just meant to do stop-motion. Live-action is much more glamorous to some, but it's basically a whole army of people focused on one thing.
Morals always sound like cliches, but usually cliches are based on things that are ultimate truths. Be grateful for what you have; appreciate what's right there in front of you.
I'm meant to be an animation director. That world, and the culture of stop-motion, is where I want to live. It's more my problem than Hollywood's. I'm not attuned to Hollywood.
It was possible that he was making some progress in his mental health condition by seeing me.
We have gotten some terrible reviews at times but if we depended on the judgment of the studios or critics, we never would have made more than one movie.
This is one of his most human and most amusing and witty novels. The characters are very Indian. I decided that I wanted to do a comedy, so this was just the right one.
