Stephen Hillenburg Quotes

I have a childlike spirit.

We've let the blade of our innocence dull over time, and it's only in innocence that you find any kind of magic, any kind of courage.

Remaining childish is a tremendous state of innocence.

I've always tried to retain that childlike wonder.

It's essential that a part of you not grow up. Childhood wonder gives us our spark and beauty.

No matter what happens, always Keep your childhood innocence. It's the most important thing.

Walt Disney, of all people, did a good job of describing his own netony. "People who have worked with me say I am 'innocence in action,'" he wrote. "They say I have the innocence and unselfconsciousness of a child. Maybe I have. I still look at the world with uncontaminated wonder."

I want to make things that put me in the position of innocence, that recreate the feeling of innocence in you.

Genius has somewhat of the infantine; but of the childish not a touch or taint.

Why should we strive, with cynic frown, to knock their fairy castles down?

My imagination is closer to a child's imagination than to a grown-up's.

The quality of artistry is the capacity to assume innocence at will, the quality of experiencing innocence as if for the first time.

I think I am a child. Everything blows my mind.

I'm still very much a kid inside myself.

One thing that I think never goes out of style is just purity. Niceness and purity. And the Muppets have never lost that. Kermit especially is just wide-eyed wonder, unblinking. And he can't blink. Which I think probably helps.

Mr. Disney believed everyone was still a child deep inside.

As children, our imaginations are vibrant, and our hearts are open. We believe that the bad guy always loses and that the tooth fairy sneaks into our rooms at night to put money under our pillow. Everything amazes us, and we think anything is possible. We continuously experience life with a sense of newness and unbridled curiosity.

Children are born with their own optimism. They have a clarity and a simplicity that we can only wish for.

As we get older, we tend to become more risk averse because we tend to find reasons why things won't work. When you are a kid, you think everything is possible, and I think with creativity it is so important to keep that naivety.

I heard my name associated with the Peter Pan syndrome more than once. But really, what's so wrong with Peter Pan? Peter Pan flies. He is a metaphor for dreams and faith.

Look at life with the eyes of a child.

I've been led by my nose all my life and tried to make perfume by boiling sugar water in jam jars and stuffing them full of gardenia and rose petals when I was growing up in Swaziland.

When you're a kid, you should be a kid.

I find that when I write for children, I am more hopeful, less cynical. I don't use different words or a different sentence structure. I just hope more.

I adore kids. I enjoy everything that they bring to the party. They just say what they think.