The Simpsons Quotes

We went to church twice a week. My parents were employed in ministry; we prayed before dinner. We rollerbladed in the summer. We were allowed to watch the 'Simpsons.' I fought with my younger brother over Legos. ~ Mallory Ortberg

[The people that worked on The Simpsons] just had good taste. They knew how to execute absurd jokes. ~ Eric Andre

I think part of it is the fact that they were kind of the first of its kind - there weren't a lot of cartoons for adults. People forget at the time that The Simpsons started out, it was controversial - the fact that they said "hell" and "damn" in a cartoon was a lot. America was in an uproar. ~ Eric Andre

When I was 21, I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for 'The Simpsons' who'd briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. Such is life. ~ Zadie Smith

There's not a fortune to be made doing voiceover work unless you're one of the main voices on The Simpsons. See, there's The Simpsons, and then there's everything else. ~ Patrick Warburton

I've always liked shows that have a strong cast of secondary characters. One of the greatest examples ever I would say is 'The Simpsons.' If you think about it, you could name 100 characters recognizable from that show. I think 'Scrubs' has done a good job of having a strong team coming off the bench. ~ Neil Flynn

Everything I know about pop culture I know from 'The Simpsons,' and they say the Grammys aren't very good. ~ Jonny Greenwood

When will people learn? Democracy doesn't work!
(Homer Simpson) ~ Matt Groening

You look at shows like The Simpsons or Larry Sanders or Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld, they're really sophisticated shows that we all love back home. ~ Simon Pegg

By Saturday night we still didn't have Jeb's body. Mom and I ate dinner quietly, letting the shared pizza and the noise of the TV substitute for the companionship and conversation of a real relationship. The Simpsons was on, but I wasn't really watching - I wanted that body. If the police kept it much longer, we wouldn't be able to embalm it at all, just seal it in a bag and hold a closed-casket funeral. ~ Dan Wells

I like the 'Simpsons' pinball machines. Those are pretty great. ~ Matt Groening

Before The Simpsons, I was 4 years old, so I don't know exactly what I was thinking before that. ~ Eric Andre

'The Simpsons' basically - and 'Futurama' - are really smart shows. They're kind of disguised as these goofy animated sitcoms, but the references within the shows, if you're paying attention, are pretty smart and pretty sophisticated. ~ Matt Groening

In the pressure cooker of a TV show, it's a little bit of a witches' brew. I completely think I'm capable of being crazy. I probably was crazy when I was doing 'The Simpsons'. ~ Sam Simon

America needs to be a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons. ~ George H. W. Bush

I grew up - for a while, the only show I could watch if I hadn't finished my homework was 'The Simpsons,' because I think my parents saw that there was some real-life lessons to take from that. ~ Tyler Ritter

I just play to progressive audiences. You know, if they're watching Discovery Channel, History Channel, that kind of thing, "Monty Python" have already laid the groundwork. They're known around the world. People like that kind of surrealist, left-field humor, and that's what I do. And "Saturday Night Live," a lot of American humor. "The Simpsons," above all, the weird, left-field humor, which I love. And sardonic. So that's all I'm doing. I find that audience, and they're in every developed country around the world. ~ Eddie Izzard

meantime, here is a list of degrees for five of the nerdiest writers: J. STEWART BURNS BS Mathematics, Harvard University MS Mathematics, UC Berkeley DAVID S. COHEN BS Physics, Harvard University MS Computer Science, UC Berkeley AL JEAN BS Mathematics, Harvard University KEN KEELER BS Applied Mathematics, Harvard University PhD Applied Mathematics, Harvard University JEFF WESTBROOK BS Physics, Harvard University PhD Computer Science, Princeton University ~ Simon Singh

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. ~ Matt Groening

I've met a lot of rock stars when they come to The Simpsons, and almost every one of them I get really freaked out. ~ Hank Azaria

'Monty Python' and 'The Simpsons' have ruined comedy for writers for the rest of our lives. ~ Scott Adsit

This doesn't happen in America! Maybe Ohio, but not in America!
Homer Simpson ~ Matt Groening

I'm always amazed by people like David Simon or the people at The Simpsons or J.K. Rowling who can create dozens and dozens of memorable characters. It seems so effortless, and even people who have just three lines in the shows or in the book have a very distinct personality, and you can feel the richness of their personal history. ~ Drew Magary

I skipped out of the Fox lot, threw my Keds back on, resisted the temptation to go over to the Simpsons building and take selfies with the Bart Simpson topiary, ~ Mindy Kaling

The Simpsons are going to Delaware! ~ Homer

Nihilism in American comedy came along way before 'The Simpsons.' There was a fairly nihilistic point of view to 'Saturday Night Live,' for instance, back in the beginning, and a lot of really dark comedy had a really anti-sentimental take on life. ~ Matt Groening

You're like Christopher Columbus. You discovered something millions of people did before you. ~ Lisa Simpson

We're going to keep trying to strengthen the American family. To make them more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons. ~ George H. W. Bush

The Simpsons was pretty experimental at the time, but it attracted a lot of sitcom writers that felt confined by the limitations of live-action sitcoms in the '80s. ~ Eric Andre

And yet ... And yet it was not the same. It could never be the same again. In the last thirty minutes, Josh's carefully ordered world had shifted and altered irrevocably. He was a normal high school sophomore, not too brilliant, but not stupid either. He played football, sang - badly - in his friend's band, had a few girls he was interested in, but no real girlfriend yet. He played the occasional computer game, preferred first person shooters like Quake and Doom and Unreal Tournament, couldn't handle the driving games and got lost in Myst. He loved The Simpsons and could quote chunks of episodes by heart, really liked Shrek, though he'd never admit it, thought the new Batman was all right and that X-Men was excellent. He even liked the new Superman, despite what other people said. Josh was ordinary. ~ Michael Scott

I think the cartoons that they're children are watching, particularly 'The Simpsons,' they're OK. I think that the adult audience is making much too much of the danger that they imply. That's not the case. The danger for children today, honey, is the news. Keep them away from news on television. ~ Jerry Lewis

I simply adore 'The Simpsons.' I go to bed in a 'Simpsons' T-shirt. ~ Steven Spielberg

The Simpsons can go anywhere in the world and not worry about any budgetary issues. However, even when the show has had its run, I think the characters can go on in perpetuity. ~ Dan Castellaneta

Basically, we used to have a rule at 'Saturday Night Live' that you're not allowed to bring up 'The Simpsons' at the rewrite table, because 'The Simpsons' has done every joke there is. Every week there would be guys going, 'The Simpsons did that.' I go, 'C'mon.' And 'South Park,' too. ~ Adam McKay

SIMPSONS BLUFFER'S RULE #2
The competent bluffer should always refer to the performers who play The Simpsons as 'the voice talent' never 'actors'.
For extra effect, drop their first names... This implies some tacit familiarity and your bluffee will simply melt before your eyes like the witch in The Wizard of Oz ~ Paul Couch

Maybe it'll be like 'The Simpsons,' and everybody will remain unchanged. Maybe that's what 'Glee's about. Maybe this is kind of a stasis show. I don't know. ~ Cory Monteith

Nobody and nothing beats The Simpsons. Even after all this time, it's still the best satire since Monty Python. ~ Alice Cooper

Before I was 12 years old, I had no interest in music; I was just into football. Then I heard Don McLean's 'Vincent' come on at the end of an episode of 'The Simpsons.' You know when you hear something and you don't understand why you like it, you just do? That's how I felt. I just thought, 'I want to be able to write songs like that.' ~ Jake Bugg

I'm a great admirer of 'The Simpsons.' It's very surprising because it's backed by a right-wing television company in the U.S., and quite often it's poking fun at the people who would be its audience. ~ Peter Higgs

The success of 'The Simpsons' really opened doors. It showed that if you were working in animation you didn't necessarily have to be working in kids' television. ~ Seth MacFarlane

I've been in movies with Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson - but I was on 'The Simpsons,' and finally, in the eyes of my children, I was a star. ~ Ed Begley, Jr.

ESPN has so many characters, it's like 'The Simpsons.' ~ Frank Caliendo

I wasn't invited to be on staff at the Simpsons because they didn't want any women on staff at the time ~ Mimi Pond

The early seasons of 'The Simpsons' had a great deal of heart. That's what I'm trying to pull from, the kind of stuff that goes straight to kids' hearts. When they're watching, they don't necessarily know why they love something. ~ Fred Seibert

When you think about 'The Simpsons' or 'King of the Hill' or something like that, the worlds tend to expand each episode, because there's no additional cost incurred to hire an animated character. ~ Greg Daniels

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. ~ Matt Groening

I always wanted to be a film-maker when I was younger, not an actor. I was an eight-year-old who dreamed of being a writer on 'The Simpsons,' which was a weird dream to have. But I started taking acting classes as a way to learn how to direct actors and I sort of fell in love with it. ~ Jonah Hill

With The Simpsons you can go back to work with a keen heart. ~ Joe Strummer

A whole generation was raised to learn about comedy from 'The Simpsons.' To get to be in a booth with Homer and Marge and be in Springfield - it was unimaginable the emotions that I felt. ~ Jonah Hill

I've probably done the odd thing. I've probably done more than I would have done and some things you don't say no to. You don't say no to working with "The Simpsons" ... the greatest comedy show on television. You mustn't. Even though going to my bad judgment, I remember saying that all I can do is make this show slightly worse. ~ Ricky Gervais

Tayla stole a peek at the report. "What's fucked up? The Smurfette?"
"The what?"
"Smurfette." Tayla rolled her eyes. "You've never watched cartoons, have you?"
Wraith came around the corner, his leather duster flapping around his boots. He shot Tay a look drenched with sympathy. "E's way too starched to watch cartoons. That's so not happening to Stewie. He's already digging The Simpsons."
"He's three weeks old!" Tayla gaped at Wraith in outrage.
"Almost four."
Tayla huffed. "Good God. I can't believe you are raising a child. Isn't there some sort of demon equivalent of Child Protective Services ?"
"Hey. I have as much right to screw up a kid as anyone else. ~ Larissa Ione

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. ~ Matt Groening

Homer: New York is a hellhole. And you know how I feel about hellholes!

Lisa: Dad, you can't judge a place you've never been to.

Bart: Yes, that's what people do in Russia. ~ The Simpsons

You can't keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once, and move on.
Homer Simpson ~ Matt Groening

I'm kind of a dork. I don't have much game. I'm not particularly comfortable in bars or clubs. I much prefer being home playing Scrabble, having dinner with a couple friends, going to see a movie, or losing a whole weekend to Season 14 of Law and Order or The Simpsons. ~ Wentworth Miller

I've been a diehard fan of 'The Simpsons' since I was a kid. ~ Reid Scott

Did you hear something?"
"No."
"Did I hear something?"
" ... I don't know ... ~ Matt Groening

You want your art to be hip and seem cool to people, but a great deal of what passes for hip or cool is now highly commercially driven. And some if it is important art. I think 'The Simpsons' is important art. On the other hand, it's also, in my opinion, relentlessly corrosive to the soul and everything is parodied and everything is ridiculous. Maybe I'm old but for my part I can be steeped in about an hour of it and then I have to walk away and look at a flower.
If there's something to be talked about, that thing is this weird conflict between what my girlfriend calls the 'inner sap,' the part of us that can really wholeheartedly weep at stuff and the part of us that has to live in a world of smart, jaded, sophisticated people and wants very much to be taken seriously by those people. ~ David Foster Wallace

Like everyone is either, "I grew up with it," or "I loved it," or loved them now. And when you watch The Muppet Movie now, it is so current. It's like The Simpsons before The Simpsons. It's not as cynical as The Simpsons would be but it's self-aware and there are a billion jokes, it breaks the fourth wall every five minutes, it's astounding, it's awesome. It's very exciting to be a part of that. ~ Nicholas Stoller

'The Simpsons' is like Charlie Parker or Marlon Brando or Richard Pryor: Comedy couldn't go back to the way it was after 'The Simpsons' came out. ~ Eric Andre

The way Disney characters move, they're very kind of slow and fluid and flowing; one pose kind of eases into the next. If you look at a show like 'The Simpsons' and subsequently a show like 'Family Guy' - the characters will jerk from pose to pose a lot, a bit more snappy. Which sort of goes along with the writing tone of the show. ~ Seth MacFarlane

I've said all along I've never competed with 'The Simpsons.' Not in my own mind. ~ Bill Cosby

I like movies that work on two levels - like The Simpsons, kids can watch it and adults can watch it. Teenagers can watch Hostel and if they want to see a blood and guts violent movie they're going to have a great time. They're going to scream and yell, it's a great date movie because they're going to squeeze their date and their date is probably going to be too scared to go home ... so you take them home and put on Dirty Dancing and everybody wins. ~ Eli Roth

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

'The Simpsons' appearances were great fun. But I don't take them too seriously. I think 'The Simpsons' have treated my disability responsibly. ~ Stephen Hawking

It was crushingly disappointing as a fan of The Simpsons to discover that it's just you in a room speaking into a microphone. I thought I was going to become friends with Homer Simpson, but unfortunately none of them are real. ~ Russell Brand

Trying to please everyone can be very hard, but, like 'Shrek' or 'The Simpsons,' 'Robin Hood' manages to entertain adults and children at the same time, but in different ways. ~ Richard C. Armitage

The Simpsons is the best thing on American television. ~ Stephen Hawking

We did 'The Simpsons Movie,' which took almost four years; it was the same people that do the TV show, and it just killed us. So that's why there hasn't been a second movie. But I imagine if the show ever does go off the air, they'll start doing movies. ~ Matt Groening

I've always just loved drawing and loved cartoons. Growing up, I loved Disney films, I loved The Simpsons, and I was a big fan of the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes and the way that they would have weird fantasy and then down-to-earth funny character comedy. ~ Alex Hirsch

Its consistency of what comedy can do and what comedy can be.Growing up with that show [The Simpsons] shaped my worldview. ~ Eric Andre

It's been a very interesting exercise as a writer - writing a little family group, like The Incredibles or The Simpsons or something like that, and setting it in a big Star Wars-type setting. It's been really fun, definitely different from the kind of thing I normally do. ~ Mark Millar

I've always loved The Simpsons, just because it was really, really funny. As a kid, you love the characters. You know that the dad is dumb and frustrated, and you know that the boy is smarter than everyone else around him and is constantly getting into mischief. ~ Alex Hirsch

The Simpsons take up so little time that I'm able to do other things as well. ~ Dan Castellaneta

I think about 'The Simpsons,' which has been going on for 25 years. Homer is still in his late 30's. Lisa is 8, Bart is 10. Their stories are told. Yet the series keeps going on and on like a zombie that won't lie down and die. That feels forced and unnatural. The characters never change, grow, age. ~ Ted Naifeh

'The Simpsons' is about alienation and the ambivalence of living with a family who you love but who drive you completely crazy. ~ Matt Groening

I know for a fact, obviously, because my kids grew up watching the show, that there are some things they are introduced to from 'The Simpsons', and then later in life they see the thing we're parodying. My kids had not seen 'Casablanca,' and we'd done parodies of 'Casablanca.' ~ Matt Groening

They [ The Simpsons] are just like the Bible to me as far as what the high-water mark of comedy. ~ Eric Andre

I always say that 'Futurama' is real, and 'The Simpsons' is fiction. ~ Matt Groening

Lisa: I pick up books like you pick up beers!
Homer: Then you have a serious reading problem. ~ The Simpsons

'The Simpsons' is still my favorite show. I have a really strong connection to it. ~ Ben Schwartz

Maybe he talks through one of those devices. Like that scientist bloke. The one on The Simpsons. ~ Jojo Moyes

'The Simpsons' obviously is a huge success, and Fox has nothing to do with its success, with its creative success, and as a result they don't really like the show. They don't like 'The Simpsons' at Fox. ~ Matt Groening

So I'm one of the few celebrities that got to do a repeat performance on 'The Simpsons,' which I'm very flattered by. ~ Al Yankovic

I tend to relate more to people on television who are just themselves, for good or for bad, than I do to someone who I believe is putting on some sort of persona. The anchorman on 'The Simpsons' is a reasonable facsimile of some anchors who have that problem. ~ Anderson Cooper

When it moved to Friday night it disappeared, when they find another show that can do what The Simpsons does, they will be delighted to do cancel The Simpsons. ~ Harry Shearer

I had the X rating on my films. Now they do as much on The Simpsons as I got an X rating for Fritz the Cat. ~ Ralph Bakshi

I have to say that The Simpsons comes from a huge number of great writers headed by Al Jean, the show-runner, and the work that they do is really fantastic. It's a blast just to sit around with them in the writers' room and listen to all the filthy jokes that will never get on the air. ~ Matt Groening

The Lampoon was definitely quite formative. You know there's a crazy like kind of network of comedy writers from The Lampoon that are, that kind of you know like Seinfeld and The Simpsons and a lot of shows kind of had a lot of kind of Lampoon writers and so that was very formative. I mean, to me I got interested in comedy writing at an early like reading like Dave Barry. ~ Nicholas Stoller

The humor is essentially dark for a cartoon and sophisticated. But at the same time, being a cartoon gives the writers more freedom than in a normal sitcom. It always pushes the line that, despite human failings, the Simpsons are really decent people. ~ Dan Castellaneta

We have a lot of American TV in Australia. I grew up watching 'Seinfeld,' 'The Simpsons' and those prime time TV shows over the years that feature grown-ups and high school kids. We had a saturation of American voices. ~ Sarah Snook

Writers do not write what they want, they write what they can. When I was 21 I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for The Simpsons who'd briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. Such is life. And now, when I finish a long day of CNN-related fear and loathing mixed with eyeballing my own resolutely white screen, I do not crawl into bed with 500-page comic novels about "multicultural" London. I read Carver. Julio Cortázar. Amis's essays. Baldwin. Lorrie Moore. Capote. Saramago. Larkin. Wodehouse. Anything, anything at all, that doesn't sound like me. ~ Zadie Smith

If Jessica [Simpson] looks hot in something, I can definitely tell her that. But for me, out of the entire Simpson family, and out of all the Simpsons on the planet, and all the girls in the universe, the hottest one is the one I married. She could be sitting there in a pair of sweatpants and she beats out any girl in Maxim. ~ Pete Wentz

I didn't lie, I was writing fiction with my mouth.
Homer Simpson ~ Matt Groening

I feed my kids organic food and milk, but I've also been known to buy the odd Lunchable. My kids are not allowed to watch TV during the week, but on weekends even the 2-year-old veges out to 'The Simpsons.' ~ Ayelet Waldman

On 'The Simpsons,' I will say that we definitely like to comment on what's going on in the world, and we try to be funny. If we can figure out a way of being funny about it, then we've gone part of the way of accomplishing our task. ~ Matt Groening

If it doesn't have siamese twins in a jar, it is not a fair. ~ Homer

America's health care system is second only to Japan, Canada, Sweden, Great Britain, well ... all of Europe. But you can thank your lucky starts we don't live in Paraguay! ~ Matt Groening

Do you ever think anything you don't say? ~ Bart Simpson's Girlfriend

Why, you could wake up dead tomorrow ~ Homer