David Rees Quotes

I like feeling like I'm discovering something new. That's really a special feeling and also, you don't have it that often. At least, I don't. Maybe I'm not creative enough.

I'm interested in the structure of art and how it works. And the content is also interesting, but I don't want to keep the same structure and just plug in new content every week.

I've never been good at self-promotion. And my URL is really obscure. And for years and years, there was nothing about me on my website.

I like to do things that are new, where I feel the sense of discovery.

The type of pop culture that is honestly very moving and powerful to me is [when artists] do their homework. They make it real.

I started sharpening pencils at the census and how that was a difficult time in my life because my marriage was ending and I had quit cartooning and I didn't know what to do with myself.

The thing I hear about a lot is when people over-sharpen their pencil with a single-blade pocket-sharpener and then when they put the pencil to the page, their tip breaks and pencil points always break irregularly. It always gets all jagged and you have to refresh the point. That's a common complaint.

I have a really analytical approach to art. And the whole idea that you can't analyze what makes a joke funny ... I do not agree with that at all.

The things I'm grateful for are: I had the one thing that I feel really lucky about, which is that I made something, I made art, that truly - in a weird way - truly comforted me and comforted a lot of people. And I'm really grateful that I got to have that experience.

I had good relationships with stores. And I was like, "All right, I'll self-publish it. But I'm only going to do 1,000."

I don't want to be one of these people who's like, "Man, I don't know where my ideas come from and I don't know why this works."

I don't like when performers rag on their ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend in absentia. If they're not there, it just feels rude ... I'm never going to say anything personal about myself on stage. That's my new goal.

I take pop culture really seriously, I think it's really important, and the stuff that I make ... I don't want it to be insubstantial, even if it's about something wacky, like sharpening pencils. I feel like I owe it to myself and I owe it to people who are really interested in pencils and I owe it to anybody to do my due diligence and give them something real.

Yeah, it's real easy to look in the mirror and be proud when you're wearing pleated shorts. And you know what's really pathetic? I don't even have any dividends to get tax-decreased. When'll they cut taxes on not-having-health-insurancends?

I talked to people in the pencil industry and I talked to people as I was sharpening their pencils about the frustrations they have with pencils, so I really did do my research and I do know more about pencils than most people.

I hardly ever use pencils. I'm left-handed and it's really messy if you're left-handed because of the graphite smudging. I use them more now than I used to because there's, like, 15,000 pencils all over my house.

I don't think I would've ever dared dreaming of becoming a professional cartoonist. I wouldn't set myself up for that disappointment.

I assumed that the pencil market was collapsing, but then it turns out that from 2010 to 2011 in the United States, pencil consumption went up by over six percent. I mean, those are all foreign-made pencils. Those are probably Chinese pencils, mostly, and Mexican pencils. I mean, it is an archaic communication technology, but it is still ubiquitous.

I just wanted a really simple, dramatic way so that fans, people who were reading my comic, would be like, "This is something different." Just to flag it, almost.

Once you use a toothbrush to clean a pencil sharpener, you should no longer use it to clean your teeth.

I liked sharpening pencils and I was like, "Oh, I wonder if I could get paid to do it." And I figured it out and I did it.

The way you make money is to do something you don't like to do. And that's how you know you're a virtuous person.

I felt really conflicted about making money off stuff that's creatively satisfying.

I never thought I would make a living as a pencil-sharpener. The first goal was: I don't want to lose money. And then the goal was: I want to see if 100 people buy my pencils. I just kept upping the benchmarks.

I don't even drink Coke. It tastes like robot sweat.

Obviously, I never had to sketch anything out. To me, that was the appeal of working with clip art, working digitally. You make it and it's done.

I feel like really thinking about art and really appreciating it and learning the language of it just makes you more of a connoisseur. I believe that.

I have very limited craftsmanship. And a lot of the stuff I make plays on that.

I'd always been really intimidated by prose writing.

People think, "Wow, people in America have so much money, they're sending hundreds of pencils to this guy." I don't think those people realize that most people who are buying these pencils are buying them as art objects or conversation pieces.

I hate self-publishing; it's a real drag and it takes up a lot of space.

The time that I would spend revisiting my old Get Your War On strips is more profitably spent Googling myself and reading comments about how people hate my pencil-sharpening business.