Makoto Shinkai

"But... you can’t be Miyazaki, you can only be the second Miyazaki, and that isn’t something to aim for."

"If I had been born 10 years earlier, I don’t think I would be an animator."

"But the thing about getting rejected is that you reflect and think and analyze about why you got turned down. You learn a lot more from stories about getting rejected than stories about becoming happy…"

"It is a part of puberty that we just want to go somewhere far away. We only have a vague image, like behind that mountain or a place more beautiful..."

"I think animation can tell more than live action."

"I think that science fiction can, by creating extreme situations and settings, draw out the essence of human relationships."

"I consider my anime as if they were children who, once grown up, are free to take their own path and personally I do not want to intrude in their lives. No father should snoop in the affairs of their …"

"I think most directors and people who make anime would agree that their latest film is probably the one they feel the most confident in, that they have done their best and put everything into."