Edwin Catmull Quotes

I eagerly await the day when there is a replacement for the meniscus.

- Edwin Catmull

I use a progressive alarm that makes a soft sound at first and then progressively gets louder. But I usually wake on the first sound, so it doesn't disturb my wife. When I used a loud alarm clock, I was more likely to hit it on the head and go back to sleep.

- Edwin Catmull

For me, the work we did to turn around 'Toy Story 2' was the defining moment in Pixar's history.

- Edwin Catmull

We've always had ups and downs at Pixar, starting with the high we felt doing something we'd never done - 'Toy Story' - and the low we felt right after when we realized we'd messed a bunch of things up along the way.

- Edwin Catmull

I exercise in the gym about three times a week. I vary the workout every time, but I'll always do some type of circuit work with weights. It gets my heart rate up without putting too much stress on my knees, which for some reason seem to be older than the rest of my body.

- Edwin Catmull

While problems in a film are fairly easy to identify, the sources of those problems are often extraordinarily difficult to assess. A mystifying plot twist or a less-than-credible change of heart in our main character is often caused by subtle underlying issues elsewhere in the story.

- Edwin Catmull

Believe me, you don't want to be at a company where there is more candor in the hallways than in the rooms where fundamental ideas or policy are being hashed out.

- Edwin Catmull

'Balance' is a soft word. It implies calm, something almost yogic, but that's not it at all. The process is always chaotic and turbulent.

- Edwin Catmull

What I've learned running Pixar applies to all businesses.

- Edwin Catmull

People say they want to be in risky environments and do all kinds of exciting stuff. But they don't actually know what risk means: that risk actually does bring failure and mistakes.

- Edwin Catmull

When you take a director off a project, that makes a person feel humiliated because everyone knows it. But we're responsible because we put them in that position.

- Edwin Catmull

I've certainly seen R&D groups, typically funded by large corporations, where they bring together a lot of smart people and nothing happens. And the reason nothing happens is that they don't have a clear goal.

- Edwin Catmull

If you want people to be let loose, you can't over-control them.

- Edwin Catmull

I have received a great deal of benefit from the simple yet difficult practice of learning to stop the internal voice in my head. I learned that the voice isn't me, and I don't need to keep rethinking events of the past nor overthink plans for the future. This skill has helped me both to focus and to pause before responding to unexpected events.

- Edwin Catmull

I've always been surprised at the number of people who think we've got it all figured out. It's incorrect, and it's a real problem.

- Edwin Catmull

Part of being the successful Pixar is that we will take risks on teams and ideas, and some of them won't work out. We only lose from this if we don't respond to the failures. If we respond, and we think it through and figure out how to move ahead, then we're learning from it. That's what Pixar is.

- Edwin Catmull

Every new idea in any field needs protection.

- Edwin Catmull

Creativity has to start somewhere, and we are true believers in the power of bracing, candid feedback, and the iterative process - reworking, reworking, and reworking again until a flawed story finds its through line or a hollow character finds its soul.

- Edwin Catmull

With certain ideas, you can predict commercial success. So with a 'Toy Story 3' or a 'Cars 2,' you know the idea is more likely to have financial success. But if you go down that path too far, you become creatively bankrupt because you're just trying to repeat yourself.

- Edwin Catmull

Every Pixar movie has its own rules that viewers have to accept, understand, and enjoy understanding. The voices of the toys in the 'Toy Story' films, for example, are never audible to humans.

- Edwin Catmull

One of the effects Pixar University has on the culture is that it makes people less self-conscious about their work and gets them comfortable with being publicly reviewed.

- Edwin Catmull

Throughout Pixar's history, we've had major meltdowns and crises. It's happened throughout our history: you reach a certain point, it doesn't work, and you start all over again.

- Edwin Catmull

If you think you're right 80% of the time, you're deluded.

- Edwin Catmull

Beware of being blinded by your own success.

- Edwin Catmull