Lillian Disney Quotes

Childhood is a naturally unhappy period of our existence, Lillian. It was Walt Disney who invented the notion that it has to be happy, simply to make money.

Enthusiasm and optimism together. He was enthusiastic about everything. He never thought anything would turn out badly. ----Lillian Disney (on Walt)

When Disney’s children were very young, he’d tried to take them to places where their imaginations could run wild. But every carnival or fair seemed to be dirty, poorly run, and filled with vice. Walt wanted to create a place where people could take their family and forget the concerns of the everyday world—a place beautiful, safe, and filled with endless wonder. So at about the same time that he had started selling assets and conserving his capital, he pulled aside one of his art directors and had him begin working on concept sketches for a new kind of amusement park. The sketches started to illustrate the vision he had in his head, a utopian world where guests would enter a fairytale world.

On July 13, 1925, Walt and Lillian were married. They spent their honeymoon at Mount Rainier. On their wedding night, Walt had such a bad toothache that he couldn’t sleep. To take his mind off the pain, he left their room and helped a porter shine shoes all night. The next morning he went to a dentist and had his tooth pulled. It certainly wasn’t the most fun way to start off a marriage. But Walt had a good story to tell.

Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, in Anaheim, California. Just four days earlier he and Lillian had their thirtieth wedding anniversary.

Disney showed the drawings to Lillian and told her he was going to call the little fellow Mortimer Mouse. She declared the name “too pompous,” and suggested Mickey instead. Mickey Mouse sprang to life as the potential savior of the Disney studio. The Disney team went to work.