We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality. We create it to be able to stay.
Lynda Barry
Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.
I am about as detailed as a shadow.
If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile.
The happy ending is hardly important, though we may be glad it's there. The real joy is knowing that if you felt the trouble in the story, your kingdom isn't dead.
I tried to be like the richer kids as much as I could because I wanted to live on their streets, at least hang out on their streets and eat their amazing food and walk barefoot on their shag carpets. I became something of a pest in that way, and in general, other people's parents didn't like me.
People think that whatever I put into strips has happened to me in my life.
I need to be cheered up a lot. I think funny people are people who need to be cheered up.
I found myself compelled - like this weird, shameful compulsion - to draw cute animals.
I run a tight ship, but I try and make it seem like I'm not doing that at all.
Remember when you were in school and the teacher would put a picture under an overhead projector so you could see it on the wall? God, I loved that. Tellya the truth, I used to look at that beam of light and think it was God.
Sometimes I think I'm the craziest person on the planet.
I believe a kid who is playing is not alone. There is something brought alive during play, and this something, when played with, seems to play back.
I am not sure how much I would like being married if I wasn't married to him. A man who likes flea markets and isn't gay? I knew I was lucky.
I do dumb stuff, like playing my favorite dumb Barry White song and lip-synching into the mirror so it looks like his voice is coming out of my mouth.
'What It Is' was based on this class I've been teaching for 10 years - I wanted to write a book about writing that didn't mention stuff like story structure, protagonists, and all those things that we know about only because they already exist in stories.
In my writing class, we never, ever talk about the writing - ever. We never address a story that's been read. I also won't let anyone look at the person who's reading. No eye contact; everybody has to draw a spiral. And I would like to do a drawing class where we could talk about anything except for the drawing. No one could even mention it.
The minute you understand racism, you're responsible for being racist. It's like eating from the tree of knowledge.
Whenever I do a book, I'm usually guided by a question or something that I'm trying to tease out.
I used to live a very social life and never spend much solitary time looking at birds or reading.
I go to work the minute I open my eyes.
I do love to eavesdrop. It's inspirational, not only for subject matter but for actual dialogue, the way people talk.
Going on Letterman is like going off the high dive. It's exhilarating, but after a while it wasn't the kind of thrill I enjoyed.
My mom didn't want me to go to college. She didn't want me to read - when I read, I may as well have been holding a pineapple.
Humor is such a wonderful thing, helping you realize what a fool you are but how beautiful that is at the same time.
I started doing cartoons when I was about 21. I never thought I would be a cartoonist. It happened behind my back. I was always a painter and drawer.
The library was open for one hour after school let out. I hid there, looking at art books and reading poetry.
If I didn't try to eavesdrop on every bus ride I take or look for the humor when I go for a walk, I would just be depressed all the time.
It's not hard for me to be funny in front of people, but most of that is just horrified nerves taking the form of what makes people laugh, and afterwards I'd always feel dreadfully depressed, kind of self-induced bi-polar disorder.
I've gotten a lot of livid letters about the awfulness of my work. I've never known what to make of it. Why do people bother to write if they hate what I do?
I wasn't afraid to be laughed at or be loud.
No one stopped me from playing when I was alone, but there were times when I wasn't able to, though I wanted to... There were times when nothing played back. Writers call it 'writer's block.' For kids there are other names for that feeling, though kids don't usually know them.
Love will make a way out of no way.
When I was working on 'Freddie,' I had been trying to write it on a computer for many, many years, but that delete button just won't let anything go forward.
Playing and fun are not the same thing, though when we grow up we may forget that and find ourselves mixing up playing with happiness. There can be a kind of amnesia about the seriousness of playing, especially when we played by ourselves.
I live in constant fear of being fired or dropped for that dark part of my work I can't control.
'Good Times' is a story about the loss of innocence, how adults are responsible for their actions but children aren't.
When you are little, you will draw pictures for no reason.
When you learn about stories in school, you get it backward. You start to think 'Oh, the reason these things are in stories is because a book said I need to put these things in there.' You need a death, as my husband says, and you need a little sidekick with a saying like 'Skivel-dee-doo!'
I was unable to sleep and I would stay up and draw these little cartoons. Then a friend showed them around. Before I knew it I was a cartoonist.
In life there are always these things happening if you can just get the joke.
If I had had me for a student I would have thrown me out of class immediately.
I listen like mad to any conversation taking place next to me just trying to hear why this is funny. Women's restrooms are especially great. I wash my hands twice waiting for people to come in and start talking.
Cartoonist was the weirdest name I finally let myself have. I would never say it. When I heard it I silently thought, what an awful word.
The strips are nearly effortless unless I am really emotionally upset, a wreck.
Remember how you used to be able to feel your bed breathing and the walls spinning when you were a kid?
There was a beautiful time in the beginning when I just did it and didn't analyze the consequences, but I think that time ends in everyone's work.
Race and class are the easiest divisions. It's very stupid.
I grew up in a house that had a whole lot of trouble. As much trouble as you could imagine.
My goal on my bucket list is to write a romantic comedy movie.
