20th-century Cartoonist Quotes

Osamu Tezuka

Matt Groening

James Thurber

Carl Barks

Shel Silverstein

Will Eisner

Art Spiegelman

We have this history of impossible solutions to insoluble problems.

Sure he (Fred Astaire) was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, backwards... and in high heels.

On the success of the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants:

I think we all thought the show would be good, but I didn't ever assume it would catch on in a mass audience sort of way, that's unexpected, and we're flattered and relieved. Our characters act silly, even totally ridiculous at times, and most of our jokes don't come out of pop cultural references, he added. It seems like we're aiming at a child audience, but everyone can laugh at the basic human traits that are funny. It's playful, the humor is playful, the world is playful. You can kind of let go.

Stephen Hillenburg

There are self-styled "anarcho-capitalists" (not to be confused with anarchists of any persuasion), who want the state abolished as a regulator of capitalism, and government handed over to capitalists.

Here's a test you can try at home: put a two-year-old in a playpen with an apple and a rabbit. If it plays with the apple and eats the rabbit, you've got a carnivore. According to numerous studies … vegetarians have 60% less cancer than meat-eaters, and a tiny fraction of the heart attack rate. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out we aren't very well designed to eat meat.

For it oft happens that a notion, when it is cloathed with words, seems tedious and operose and hard to be conceived, which yet being striped of that garniture, the ideas shrink into a narrow compass, and are viewed almost by one glance of thought.

David Berman (musician)

I propose that infinitely refutable statistics be declared the official language of politics.

Mark Alan Stamaty

How does a weaker minority dominate a physically superior majority? In my research I learned that this is accomplished by destroying the slave's mind. More effective than whips and guns was the simple act of outlawing the teaching of slaves to read and to write.

I could lose myself forever in that dark hair and those sweet love handles.

I read some of my stories recently and thought, 'How in the hell did I get away with that?' I had some really raw cynicism in some of them.

Not all the war correspondents [in Afghanistan] were nervous. My wife asked a journalist covering the Khanabad front why he didn't wear a bulletproof vest. (At $1,200 each, we couldn't afford them.) "Are you kidding?" the heavyset photographer for The San Jose Mercury News replied as he wiped his brow. "It's too hot out here."

If half the engineering effort and public interest that go into the research of the American bosom had gone into our guided-missile program, we would now be running hot-dog stands on the moon.

Dear Lord, I've been asked, nay commanded, to thank Thee for the Christmas turkey before us... a turkey which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird... a social being... capable of actual affection... nuzzling its young with almost human-like compassion. Anyway, it's dead and we're gonna eat it. Please give our respects to its family..

Berkeley Breathed

Writing is simple. First you have to make sure you have plenty of paper... sharp pencils... typewriter ribbon. Then put your belly up to the desk... roll a sheet of paper into the typewriter... and stare at it until beads of blood appear on your forehead.

A zebra can't drive a moon-buggy. Or any other sort of car for that matter.

I had a bug idea, a bug strip. I submitted a lot of ideas to newspaper syndicates and finally an editor said, "Your scripts are great but bugs? Nobody can relate." So I took a long hard look at the comics and I thought, "Dogs are doing really well. Snoopy, Marmaduke and so on." So if dogs were doing well, I thought maybe people would want to see cats.

Jim Davis (cartoonist)

We had some problems with the Howard newspaper strip, which led to problems with the Howard book, which ultimately led to the lawsuit. Marvel wouldn't pay the artist to draw it. Gene Colan and I were supposed to get a percentage of the syndicate's take for the strip. The problem was, the money came in 90 days, 120 days, six months — I don't remember how long exactly — after the strips were published. So, essentially, the artist was working for nothing up until that time, and no artist can afford to do that. [In comparison with Stan Lee and John Romita|'s Spider-Man comic strip,] Stan, as publisher of Marvel, had a regular salary coming in, and John Romita, I believe, was also on staff at the time. They didn't have quite the same problem.

Wait a minute, can't you? I've only got three hands.

No, Thursday's out. How about never—is never good for you?

I've always looked upon politics as a very boring thing. Politics never interested me as much as the people involved in it.

A nursery rhyme from the American Psychiatric Society:
Monday's kid is passive-aggressive
Tuesday's kid is compulsive-obsessive
Wednesday's kid is hypochondriacal
Thursday's kid is just plain maniacal
Friday's kid is anal-retentive
Saturday's kid is too non-attentive
But the kid who's born on the Sabbath day
defies diagnosis in every way.

The death of our close friends and relatives proves that how close the death is to us!

It was great fun, to learn anew. You think you know enough, but you don't. You must open up; let it in. be receptive, admit what you don't know, which few are willing to do. Start from square one. Again!

A manifesto, a diary, a crumpled suicide note, and a still relevant love letter.

Laughter is the brush that sweeps away the cobwebs of your heart.