Well, yes. I believe that children's souls are the inheritors of historical memory from previous generations. It's just that as they grow older and experience the everyday world that memory sinks lower and lower. I feel I need to make a film that reaches down to that level. If I could do that I would die happy.

My process is thinking, thinking and thinking - thinking about my stories for a long time.

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

I wish I was better at art. I love some of the great artists of the 19th century and, compared to them, I just feel I lack this technique that they had. They have so much skill.

I'm not going to make movies that tell children, "You should despair and run away".

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.

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.