Jules Feiffer Quotes

We are all continually embarking on first drafts, in every aspect of our lives.

Be warned against all 'good' advice because 'good' advice is necessarily 'safe' advice, and though it will undoubtedly follow a sane pattern, it will very likely lead one into total sterility
one of the crushing problems of our time.

Artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue. Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid.

The artwork had very little to do with the thought process, and the writing too, for that matter. What happens, happens, and it happens outside the brain.

The weekly cartoons, as were my plays, came from a sense of criticism, criticism of the times, critical of the culture, of our manners and attitudes towards each other. The children's books come from the reverse. They're more supportive, since we're living in a time where we talk more about kids and do less, we talk about balancing the budget and we do it by cutting education.

I've never met a cartoonist who isn't quirky or weird in some ways.

When I write a play, my whole intent at bottom is to get the audience to be in the cast, to get that audience on stage with the actors and to get them thoroughly involved in what's going on.

I told the doctor I was overtired, anxiety-ridden, compulsively active, constantly depressed, with recurring fits of paranoia. Turns out I'm normal.

Over the years, I discovered over and over again that once you lose control, you have a chance of getting good at it. And once you're controlling the work, it's not going to be very good, or it won't be as good as it should be.

Writing, I explained, was mainly an attempt to out-argue one's past; to present events in such a light that battles lost in life were either won on paper or held to a draw.

Satire doesn't stand a chance against reality anymore.

If you are not able to communicate successfully between yourself and yourself, how are you supposed to make it with the strangers outside?

We want playmates we can own.

I think we overrate experience and what we've been through in terms of our success at doing the work we do. There are many people who get beat up, who suffer, who are victimized, and then they sit down to write and they write crap.

I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy. Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy, I was deprived. Then they told me underpriviledged was overused, I was disadvantaged. I still don't have a dime, but I have a great vocabulary.

Kids are in ongoing need of support, and they get various versions of it from grownups which aren't legitimate - a grownup's version of what we think you should have. We tell you what creativity is, and we even tell you what you're thinking.

Good swiping is an art in itself.

Eventually, if it's on your mind, you stumble on it. You need a certain amount of luck and persistence.

Getting out of bed in the morning is an act of false confidence.

It is not size or age that separates children from adults. It is responsibility.

There's no rap against comics that isn't true. They were sexist, they were racist, you name it - and they kind of gloried in that.

Imagination continually frustrates tradition; that is its function.