Stephan Pastis Quotes

I like characters like Ignatius Reilly in 'A Confederacy of Dunces' and Ricky Gervais's character in 'The Office.' They think one thing about themselves, but the truth is as far from that as it can be. So I began to think about how to put that kind of character in a book for kids.

You can write a little and can draw a little, but there's necessarily a limitation on both in a comic strip, since it appears in such a tiny space.

Having a syndicated comic strip is a great platform for ripping on expressions you hate.

I know that if I am to move forward like the professional that I am, I must first see the past with mature eyes. And that means acknowledging that others have caused all my problems and blaming them for it.

I put Post-It notes everywhere to remind me of everything. I stick a ton of them on my computer monitor, telephone, and wallet. The problem now is that there are so many of them that my mind has blocked them all out. So I now need Post-It notes to remind me to look at my Post-It notes.

Eternal condemnation is the key to selling doorknobs.

Sticking to my schedule, I've gotten over seven months ahead, which allowed me to write a 'Pearls Before Swine' movie script for the big screen.

Humility is what you strive for when you've failed at everything else.

Thomas, my 15-year-old, is effectively my editor, I've always trusted his voice, more than anybody, on the strip for years. He has one of those ears that's just tuned to the rhythm of humor, so if he says something's not funny, my stomach just hurts because I know he's right, and it's already been drawn.

Stupid people and their stupid people ways!

I never feel burdened or overwhelmed by my work. People tell you to find something you love for a career, and I have. That makes me feel very lucky.

We need more cartoonists to truly retire when they retire, and not run repeats.

When I was at the University of California at Berkeley, I went to some classes that must have had more than four hundred students in them. I almost always sat in the far back of the auditorium so I could read the newspaper. I remember that I stayed late one day to ask the professor a question, and when I got up to him, all I could think to myself was, 'So this is what the professor looks like.

This is every creative person's dream - a hobby that I'm lucky enough to get paid for.

For me, going to Minneapolis is like going to Mecca.

The wonderful thing about a book is that you have a canvas that is 300 pages wide, and it's all free space. You can make a piece of art as big as you want and whatever shape you want.

If a restaurant offers crayons, I always take them and color throughout the meal. It beats talking to the people I came to dinner with.

The only thing I learn on a daily basis from law school is that I disliked it and the law so much that it's constantly this fire at my heels.

Maybe the bar is low, but most of the strips that are 50, 60, 70 years old that are on their second or third generation of artists, the humor is pretty bland. There are others by people that were raised on 'Family Guy' or 'South Park' that are edgier. Mine's not as edgy as those, but it's edgier than 'Beetle Bailey.'

Everyone cites [Charles Schulz], but it's with good reason. He taught me timing, tone, character development, practically everything.

Gary Larson: The funniest cartoonist I've ever seen. His two-volume set (The Complete Far Side) should be the textbook in any course taught on how to be funny on the comics page.

I like characters who have blind spots and are full of themselves, but there also needs to be vulnerability.

I'm 12 years old in my head.

I recently forced myself to read a book on quantum physics, just to try and learn something new. I was confused by the middle of the first sentence and it all went downhill from there. The only thing I can remember learning is that a parallel universe can theoretically be contained on the head of a needle. I don't really know what that means, but I am now more careful handling needles.

You can't just count on becoming a syndicated cartoonist. I actually tried to calculate the odds once, and the best I could come up with is a 1-in-36,000 chance. And the odds of getting hit by lightning are 1 in 7,900 - which kind of shows how long those odds are.

I don't pay that much attention to sales figures or awards. To me, the big question is: 'Did you influence the next generation?' That's my goal.

It's best to love your family as you would a Siberian tiger-from a distance, preferably separated by bars.

When you can't draw chameleons and you can't draw blenders, it's a bad idea to write strips where chameleons become blenders.

Basically, I learned to read by reading 'Peanuts,' just wanting to know what they were saying.

Repeats are the absolute soul-crushing killers of the comics page.

When people bore me, I close my eyes and try to remember the order the Seven Dwarfs marched in. But it's not always the dwarfs I think about. Sometimes aI try to list all of the Canadian provinces.

Repeats are the worst, and 'Peanuts' was the one that started that. They don't rerun the news, do they? They don't repeat any other part of the paper. Why do they do it in the comics?

It seems so absurd to get really mad with a cartoonist over a comic strip. It's sort of like getting in a fight with a circus clown outside your house. It's not going to end well.

I was a lawyer for 10 years, and when you're in law, things really have to get done, or somebody sues you. It's a great trick.

I don't like drawing characters facing right. If I tried to do that at a book signing, I'd have to pencil it first.

Man, I put myself in a lot of comic strips. Something's wrong with my sense of self.

A stand-up comedian faces the audiences and gets their immediate feedback. I hide behind the comic strip, and unless people write to me, I don't know what they think.

I'm very harsh on real estate agents. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because of how the call every small house 'charming' and every run-down house a 'great fixer-upper'. Just once, I'd like them to show me a house and declare, 'This one's a piece of crap'.