In my opinion, animation is best when it communicates without words, because it is the perfect medium through which to make shortcuts to meaning. When actors are not talking, just acting out, it looks kind of weird. But in animation, mime is constant, and you accept it.

Once an audience feels that you trust them like you trust a friend, they do become your friends.

What inspires me is when I see something and I say, "I can do that too!"

Storyboards are kind of inflexible, once you finish making them you have to stick to them. Since animation takes such a long time you become a slave to a storyboard that was created four years ago while as an artist and storyteller you change, you have new ideas.

I guess I'm interested in the behind-the-surface feelings of the human condition, in my own way. I was always struck by the gap - at least in the books I was reading - between what people tell stories about and what I actually feel. I started thinking about a gap between fantasy and reality.

I always knew that I wanted to be a writer. I think I was six or seven when I learned how to read, and I still remember it.

The ability to understand and deliver comedy and tragedy is extremely rare in one composer.