Chuck Jones quotes:

Jackie Gleason said that comedy is the most exacting form of dramatic art, because it has an instant critic: laughter.

Human beings will line up for miles to buy a bucket of catastrophes, but don't try selling sunshine and light - you'll go broke.

Anyone can negatively criticize - it is the cheapest of all comment because it requires not a modicum of the effort that suggestion requires.

An idea has no worth at all without believable characters to implement it; a plot without characters is like a tennis court without players. Daffy Duck is to a Buck Rogers story what John McEnroe was to tennis. Personality. That is the key, the drum, the fife. Forget the plot.

A lion's work hours are only when he's hungry; once he's satisfied, the predator and prey live peacefully together.

I have to think as Bugs Bunny, not of Bugs Bunny.

Often Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.

In 1918, when I was 6 or 7 years old, radio was just coming into use in the Great War.

Painting does what we cannot do - it brings a three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional plane.

Disney was not a good animator, he didn't draw well at all, but he was always a great idea man, and a good writer.

We must not confuse distortion with innovation; distortion is useless change, art is beneficial change.

Eschew the ordinary, disdain the commonplace. If you have a single-minded need for something, let it be the unusual, the esoteric, the bizarre, the unexpected.

Each character represented a trait that resides in me.

Mark Twain's Roughing It is a book that many people don't know about, but I highly recommend to anybody at any age."

Everything on Saturday morning [cartoons] moves alike that's one of the reasons it's not animation. The drawings are different, but everybody acts the same way, their feet move the same way, and everybody runs the same way. It doesn't matter whether it's an alligator or a man or a baby or anything, they all move the same.

The whole essence of good drawing - and of good thinking, perhaps - is to work a subject down to the simplest form possible and still have it believable for what it is meant to be.

The only time a wife listens to her husband is when he's asleep.

Animation isn't the illusion of life; it is life

Animation means to invoke life, not to imitate it.

Artists don't need criticism, artists need love

Comedy is a very, very, very stringent business.

There's only one test of a great children's book, or a great children's film, and that is this: If it can be read or viewed with pleasure by adults, then it has the chance to be a great children's film, or a great children's book.

Dell is to a degree in the penalty box because expectations and probable results have gotten ratcheted down.

The close-up, according to D.W. Griffith, allows subtle changes of facial expression-the raising of an eyebrow or the flicker of a smile-to become part of the action.

Comedy is unusual people in real situations; farce is real people in unusual situations.

There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is the willingness to think.

When critics sit in judgment it is hard to tell where justice leaves off and vengeance begins.

An animator is an actor with a pencil.

In timing a film, we used to assume that sneaks move slowly. This was great for animators-thirty-six to forty-eight drawings for a single step-but it was sheer hell for the pace of the picture. So the rapid tiptoe was invented.

You have a coyote inside you and you have to get it out

Fog and smog should not be confused and are easily separated by color.

The rules are simple. Take your work, but never yourself, seriously. Pour in the love and whatever skill you have, and it will come out.

The weatherman is not only blamed for his failure to foretell, he is blamed for the weather itself.

The Coyote is limited, as Bugs is limited, by his anatomy.

Once you have heard a strange audience burst into laughter at a film you directed, you realize what the word joy is all about.

If you want a midget to look like a baby, don't put a cigar in his mouth.

Well, directing is doing the key drawings, not the key animation, mind you.

The author O. Henry taught me about the value of the unexpected. He once wrote about the noise of flowers and the smell of birds - the birds were chickens and the flowers dried sunflowers rattling against a wall.

Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.

I started reading when I was about three, a little over three.

The only thing an adult can give a child is time.

If you start with character, you probably will end up with good drawings.

Bugs is who we want to be. Daffy is who we are.

All worthwhile endeavors are 90% work and 10% love, and only the love should show.

You can't force inspiration. It's like trying to catch a butterfly with a hoop but no net. If you keep your mind open and receptive, though, one day a butterfly will land on your finger.

You do not 'suffer' if you decide 'that's the way it is' rather than 'why is it this way?'

Every artist has thousands of bad drawings in them and the only way to get rid of them is to draw them out.

All of you here have one hundred thousand bad drawings in you. The sooner you get rid of them, the better it will be for everyone.

As you become acquainted with a character you are creating, you add parts of yourself that are pertinent to that character.

A comedian is not a person who opens a funny door - he's the person who opens a door funny.

Every great artist must begin by learning to draw with the single line, and my advice to young animators is to learn how to live with that razor-sharp instrument or art. An artist who comes to me with eight or ten good drawings of the human figure in simple lines has a good chance of being hired. But I will tell the artist who comes with a bunch of drawings of Bugs Bunny to go back and learn how to draw the human body. An artist who knows that can learn how to draw ANYTHING, including Bugs Bunny.

Early experiences convinced me that animals can and do have quite distinct personalities.

[W]hen the coyote falls, he gets up and brushes himself off; it's preservation of dignity. He's humiliated, and it worries him when he ends up looking like an accordion. A coyote isn't much, but it's better than being an accordion.

The only time a wife listens to her husband is when heâ??s asleep.

The older I get, the more individuality I find in animals and the less I find in humans.

If you make a fool of yourself in front of a cat, he will sneer at you, if you are sober; he will leave the room if you are drunk. If you make a fool of yourself in front a dog, he will make a fool of himself, too.

I have come to know Bugs so well that I no longer have to think about what he is doing in any situation. I let the part of me that is Bugs come to the surface, knowing, with regret, that I can never match his marvelous confidence.

I'm not a believer in putting designers off in an ivory tower. They need to have a voice at the table so they can identify where and why design can make a difference. We also need to understand the business issues. If we don't make our numbers this quarter, we don't earn the right to do something cool the next time.

The road is better than the end.

You've got a million bad drawings in you; you better get started.

I'm still astonished that somebody would offer me a job and pay me to do what I wanted to do.

Eschew the ordinary, disdain the commonplace

The name 'Chuck Jones', according to my uncle, limited my choice of profession to second baseman or cartoonist.

Mark Twain's Roughing It is a book that many people don't know about, but I highly recommend to anybody at any age.

If you were to draw Bugs, the easiest way is to learn how to draw a carrot and then hook a rabbit onto it

Censorship, I believe, is the most dangerous enemy to all human communication, and piety of intention is probably the most dangerous, the most virulent and the most self-satisfying.

Anyone can say 'no'. It is the first word a child learns and often the first word he speaks. It is a cheap word because it requires no explanation, and many men and women have acquired a reputation for intelligence who know only this word and have used it in place of thought on every occasion.