What you mean by 'peace' is nothing more than the endless repetition of human folly.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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