Jim Henson Quotes

“There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.”

“No time is wasted time”

“When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope is to leave the world a little better for having been there.”

“My hope still is to leave the world a bit better than when I got here.”

“Honestly, I've been making up everything as I go. When you're riding the ice pony, you see a lot of talking frogs.”

“The most sophisticated people I know--inside they're all children. We never really loose a certain sense we had when we were kids.”

“In actuality, Muppets was a word we just coined. It was merely to be the name of our act…. I used to say to people that it was a combination of 'marionettes' and 'puppets.'… But then I stopped telling this lie, and I'm back to the truth: It just came out of midair.”

“Jim Henson was a one-of-a-kind visionary whose works have entertained and sparked the imagination of millions of people across the globe for generations.”

“There are people who think that we should never reveal anything, never show puppeteers and all of that. It tends to be something that parents worry about more than kids, because kids work just at face value.”

“People shouldn't come expecting to see the Muppets because they are not here. This is something else.”

“Life's like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.”

“Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody. It's a good life, enjoy it.”

“Life's like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending. We've done just what we set out to do. Thanks to the lovers, the dreamers and you.”

“The beauty of nature has been one of the great inspirations in my life.”

“I try hard not to judge anyone, and I try to bless everyone who is a part of my life, particularly anyone with whom I am having any problems”

“[Kids] don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”

“Only time can heal your broken heart. Just as only time can heal his broken arms and legs.”

“As children, we all live in a world of imagination, of fantasy, and for some of us that world of make-believe continues into adulthood.”

“Simple is good.”

“Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child you have stolen, for my will is as strong as yours and my kingdom as great. You have no power over me!”

“It all ends in one of two ways: either someone gets eaten or something blows up.”

“I believe that we form our own lives, that we create our own reality, and that everything works out for the best.”

“Yes, its one of the basic truths of the universe,…. Things don't disappear. They just change, and change and change again.”

“Who said that every wish would be heard and answered when wished on an evening star? Somebody thought of it and someone believed it, and look what its done so far.”

“I guess I was wrong when I said I never promised anyone. I promised me.”

“If you can't beat them. Join them”

“We see with our eyes. We know with our hearts. Outside… Inside.”

“I hope that something better comes along.”

“I think if you study--if you learn too much of what others have done, you may tend to take the same direction as everybody else.”

“Watch out for the icy patch”

“A lot of the shows relate to interrelationships and attitudes, again, always trying to do it within the context of a very entertaining show.”

“I couldn't do ventriloquism. I don't have any interest in splitting myself in two, the way a ventriloquist does — half-himself, half the dummy on his knee.”

“No, I don't believe we've ever designed a character around a person. Usually, we start out with a kind of personality.”

“Even as a kid, I felt isolated. Isolation makes you sensitive. As a kid, I felt I was the only person who was like that. But there's a good side to isolation. It makes you sensitive, and sensitivity is part of the creative process.”

“Frankly, I'm a lot more comfortable if I'm wearing a puppet.”

“If any-thing, there's a difference in working with color in England and the color in the U. S.”

“Puppetry's a lot harder than people realize, and it's particularly difficult doing a movie. You have this scene with all these puppets, and when something goes wrong, you've got to set the whole thing up to do it again. With people, you ask an actor to walk across the room a second or third time, and he does it. That's it.”

“I'm sure Kermit will stay young a lot longer than I will.”

“I've always thought that science fiction films set in our world have always rung false.”

“I really began to appreciate puppetry [while doing Sam and Friends].”

“There are so many forms of puppets. The ones on 'Sesame Street' are probably the most simple that we do.”

“I do remember doing shows strictly in black and white, too.”

“Puppets have the same sort of graceful aging that cartoon characters have.”

“I wanted to do a film where the creatures didn't look like us.”

“Personally, I prefer working in the background.”

“With puppets, I don't think you should try to duplicate what humans do. It can cause problems.”

“With 'The Muppet Show' we used to play with a lot of different styles. That's what it was: a variety thing.”

“I always felt that I was not a part of things in general. I've always been outside of things.”

“We started off with this fairly grand concept of, if you were to tackle it at a children's level, eliminating war. What would you do?”

“There must be a lot of shy actor in puppeteering. His work is the puppeteer's statement. It's his outlet. If I had to face the audience myself, as Jim Henson, I'm sure I'd be just a bit shy. But when it's your puppets that face the audience, it's different. That I can do very easily.”

“What do we want our children to get from Henson’s work? The same thing we learned from it. The philosophy of a gentle dreamer. The message that was encapsulated in “The Rainbow Connection” – the one about the “The lovers, the dreamers, and me.” It’s the idea that life is about making a difference, a positive change. And we’ve all heard it, even the Howard Roarks among us, calling our names.”

“With Big Bird we knew we wanted to do a large, a great big character. He should represent a child so he can make the kinds of mistakes that kids make, and talk about it and be out front about that.”

“What Jim wanted to do, and it was totally his vision, was to get back to the darkness of the original Grimm’s fairy tales. He thought it was fine to scare children. He didn’t think it was healthy for children to always feel safe.”

“The whole idea with the show from the start was to go international.”

“It's an adventure story. But it's definitely not in our world.”

“It's a rather dark vision, actually.”

“I think it's good to be your own person. But individuality is a mixed blessing. People who are 'different' are isolated.”

“The puppets in 'Dark Crystal' were very complicated, and some quite unpleasant. In that movie, I think we got into areas a bit too realistic.”

“When you trick people into laughing at themselves, that's wit. If you don't laugh at yourself, everything becomes heavy.”

“There's great value in being able to step back and laugh at yourself, at life and at attitudes. Laughter helps you put everything into perspective.”

“Many creative people have a certain degree of dissatisfaction with the status quo, the established way. If you look at things differently, you are thought of as 'different.' In turn, 'different' people are thought to be 'mad.”

“I know parents are often concerned: 'Oh, no, I wouldn't take my kids into the studio because it would destroy all their illusions.”

“It has always been difficult to get Big Bird to be very pretty. Big Bird in England is much more gorgeous.”

“I was very interested in theatre—mostly in stage design but I did a little bit of acting.”

“I've never felt any sense of competition with anybody, and we're all friends. We're all good friends.”

“The people who worked for Jim felt like family and he treated them like family.”