Quotes By Matt Groening

We've been running a little behind schedule. But only by about 15 years or so.

I don't have to be careful, I've got a gun.

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.

Living creatively is really important to maintain throughout your life. And living creatively doesn't mean only artistic creativity, although that's part of it. It means being yourself, not just complying with the wishes of other people.

Well, most grown-ups forget what it was like to be a kid. I vowed that I would never forget.

The thing that makes me happiest about Simpsons Illustrated are all the drawings that we get from readers. I wish we could print them all. They're really imaginative. They show a lot of hard work.

Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.

'The Simpsons' is an especially collaborative show.

We've got a bunch of new writers now who tell me they grew up watching The Simpsons. It's bizarre, and they're writing some very funny stuff.

A lot of our writers, like Conan O'Brien, moved on to other things.

Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun.

A lot of people believe that if everybody just did what they were told - obeyed - everything would be fine. But that's not what life is all about. That's not real. It's never going to happen.

I love the idea that we put in jokes the kids don't get. And that later, when they grow up and read a few books and go to college and watch the show again, they can get it on a completely different level.

Eat my shorts!

Everybody doesn't have to get every joke. People really appreciate not being condescended to.

I've loved science fiction ever since I was a little kid, mainly from looking at the covers of science-fiction magazines and books, and I've read quite extensively as an adult.

Our solution on 'The Simpsons' is to do jokes that people who have an education, or some frame of reference, can get. And for the ones who don't, it doesn't matter, because we have Homer banging his head and saying, 'D'oh!'

Cartooning is for people who can't quite draw and can't quite write. You combine the two half-talents and come up with a career.

I think in daily newspapers, the way comic strips are treated, it's as if newspaper publishers are going out of their way to kill the medium.

It's just hard not to listen to TV: it's spent so much more time raising us than parents have.

God often gives nuts to toothless people.

Don't have a cow, man.

It's a funny show. The characters are surprisingly likable, given how ugly they are. We've got this huge cast of characters that we can move around. And over the last few seasons, we've explored some of the secondary characters' personal lives a bit more.

Because good writing in a TV cartoon is so rare, I think the animation on The Simpsons is often overlooked.

I was always frightened by taverns. They just seemed like very unpleasant places to go.

When The Simpsons came around, there really was nothing else like it on TV. It's hard to imagine, but when Fox first took the plunge with it, it was considered controversial to put animation on prime time.

I draw a weekly comic strip called Life in Hell, which is syndicated in about 250 newspapers. That's what I did before The Simpsons, and what I plan to do for the rest of my life.

Most TV shows don't reward you for paying attention.

I think 'Family Guy' and 'American Dad' have definitely staked out their own style and territory, and now the accusations are coming that 'The Simpsons' is taking jokes from 'Family Guy.' And I can tell you, that ain't the case.

I'm a writer who just happens to draw.