“I get inspiration from my everyday life.”

Those are shrines. Some people believe spirits live in them.

I don’t like games. You’re robbing the precious time of children to be children. They need to be in touch with the real world more.

Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.

I think that’s exactly why the fantasy worlds of cartoon movies so strongly represent our hopes and yearnings. They illustrate a world of lost possibilities for us.

I intend to work until the day I die.

Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves.

Sometimes I test myself saying, ‘If I get a death sentence if I don’t make this movie, would I still make this movie?

Prizes do not mean anything to me.

Producing an animation series merely to fill time slots in the broadcast schedule is like generating cultural pollution.

We live in an age when it is cheaper to buy the rights to movies than to make them.

Life is a winking light in the darkness.

There cannot be a happy ending to the fight between the raging gods and humans.

Whoever falls, hatred will breed hatred.

Logic is using the front part of the brain, that’s all.

Once you have met someone, you never really forget them.

You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.

Even without you, my story must go on.

The right thing to do and the hard thing to do are usually the same.

When the darkness closes in, push back.

How tremendously brave to be shattered in a way that makes stained-glass windows from the pain.

If you follow your heart, you’re going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.

Extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.

The more you go to your limits, the more your limits will expand.

Earn your wings by letting go.