Quotes By Lynda Barry

My goal on my bucket list is to write a romantic comedy movie.

Remember how you used to be able to feel your bed breathing and the walls spinning when you were a kid?

Whenever I do a book, I'm usually guided by a question or something that I'm trying to tease out.

In life there are always these things happening if you can just get the joke.

I go to work the minute I open my eyes.

Humor is such a wonderful thing, helping you realize what a fool you are but how beautiful that is at the same time.

Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.

I run a tight ship, but I try and make it seem like I'm not doing that at all.

I remember my comic strips being called 'new wave.' It bugged me.

Race and class are the easiest divisions. It's very stupid.

For horror movies, color is reassuring because, at least in older films, it adds to the fakey-ness.

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?

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.

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.

I live in constant fear of being fired or dropped for that dark part of my work I can't control.

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.

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.

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.

I found myself compelled - like this weird, shameful compulsion - to draw cute animals.

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.

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.

The library was open for one hour after school let out. I hid there, looking at art books and reading poetry.

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.

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.

If I had had me for a student I would have thrown me out of class immediately.

Part of a horror movie has to be a bit fakey for me to really enjoy it. The new ones are so realistic that they distract me from the ride through the horror.

I do love to eavesdrop. It's inspirational, not only for subject matter but for actual dialogue, the way people talk.

The strips are nearly effortless unless I am really emotionally upset, a wreck.

I used to live a very social life and never spend much solitary time looking at birds or reading.

People think that whatever I put into strips has happened to me in my life.