Alan Menken Quotes

My first record was about childhood. There were a lot of nursery rhyme and fairytale references; it was all about being naive.

I saw 'Beauty and the Beast' at eight years old in theatres and spent hours trying to recreate the majestic imagery of that story in a drawing notepad at home.

Everyone loves Disney, it just has a special place in everyone's heart.

Childhood means simplicity. Look at the world with the child's eye - it is very beautiful.

There's something about girls and unicorns that's deep and meaningful. Something about childhood.

There's nothing I liked visually of the period I was a child. There was no dream in it, and nothing sparkled.

I'm still very much a kid inside myself.

I can remember being eight, and I like writing about that age of innocence when children still have a sense of wonder.

I've always reverted to a sense of childhood, just in everyday life.

I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness.

Walt Disney was not a merchant of sadness.

Disney has a great tradition of enchanting children and giving them something to behold.

Between the theme parks and the movies, the Disney iconography was probably the first set of archetypes that I was exposed to. Walt was able to expose me as a child to the full array of emotions, including fear and sorrow. Those movies and attractions haunted my dreams and made a deep impression on me as a child.

I don't remember being a child, and that's why I think I'm so child-like now in my unending curiosity and approach to life.

I think the secret to what Jim Henson did, ultimately, is that he understood how to cut through to the... I know this sounds corny... but the child inside of you.

Every time I play 'Part of Your World,' a whole part of my life comes back to me. It's just inescapable - it was an innocent time, and a sense of discovery that we were all involved with.

Artless fairy stories enchant us in our first years and retain their hold on us until our last.

'In Ear Park' perfectly encapsulates the beauty of youth for me.

I love Disney.

I am a romantic. I want to cry when I throw out my Christmas tree, and I have a lot of feelings about magic and fantasy.

Is the world all grown up? Is childhood dead? Or is there not in the bosom of the wisest and the best some of the child's heart left, to respond to its earliest enchantments?

If I'm honest I have to tell you I still read fairy-tales and I like them best of all.

The great dream merchant Disney was a success because make-believe was what everyone seemed to need in a spiritually empty land.

It's so important and easy to be a kid at heart.

I don't know if I really watched any Disney animation as a kid.