"Camera, color, costume, music, cutting are all valuable supports to the animator, but they are no more essential to his basic skill than they are to the actor - and here is the clearest of all possible explanations of just what an animator really is; he is the actor of the graphic arts: just as the actor infuses life and character and meaning and story through body mechanics, rhythm, movement and so on, just so does the animator achieve like results imbuing life through his finger tips and his pencil.
For life is the end purpose of the animator's art, a peculiar kind of life generally; that which cannot be achieved in any other way. Animation to great extent is an extension of motion pictures, containing within itself a superb potential to bring spirit and movement to things that have never lived, that never will live, that could not live in any other way; animation is bringing credence to the impossible." -Chuck Jones
"To evoke in oneself a feeling one has experienced, and having evoked it oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art.
Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, so that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them." -Leo Tolstoy
"Bad artists always admire each other’s work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those he has selected." -Oscar Wilde
"Good taste is the enemy of creativity." -Pablo Picasso
"Animation is tremendously resilient. Animation will recover, as art always recovers. There's always cycles of good art." -Ralph Bakshi
"People today are far too interested in 'expressing themselves' and trying to prove how unique their points of view are to take the time to learn." -Katie Rice
Details and long hours by themselves do nothing for art. Intelligent, creative choices make art. -John K.
"There are no stories in modern features. Just cliches." -John K.
"If you just copy trendy styles, you will be severely handicapped in what you can create. Each modern style has built in limitations. The better you can draw, the more you can learn and observe and interpret, the more of a creative powerhouse you will be." -John K.
"All cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration, caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable." -Walt Disney