Garry Trudeau

“In Palm Springs, they think homelessness is caused by bad divorce lawyers.”

“I can only try to keep the characters interesting; it's up to the readers to decide whether they're still relevant.”

“I'm never happier than when I'm not working. The strip is a job - that's why I take money for it. It's a job I'm passionate about, but it's a job I totally leave in the studio when I walk out of here, unless I'm late and I have to work at home. I never think of the strip unless I'm compelled to.”

“Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated.”

“I try to take people one at a time, with all the contradictions and compromises that most of us live with.”

“Comic strips are like a public utility. They're supposed to be there 365 days a year, and you're supposed to be able to hit the mark day after day.”

“I think it's very dangerous for people who do anything that's public to venture on the Web and check out what people are saying about them. Yes, you're bound to find things that will delight you - but you also find things that will make you brood and feel bad about yourself. Why would you intentionally invite that into your life?”

“The strips about the military do seem to provoke moving and thoughtful responses. It's nice when the strip resonates, but more importantly, I need to know when I'm getting something wrong. The last thing I want to do is contribute to the suffering that wounded warriors already endure.”

“Comic-strip artists generally have very modest ambitions. Day to day, we labor to fit together all these little moving parts - a character or two, a few lines of dialogue, framing, pacing, payoff - but we certainly don't think of them adding up over time to some larger portrait of our times.”

“Life is like a movie-since there aren't any commercial breaks, you have to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of it.”

“I've been trying for some time to develop a lifestyle that doesn't require my presence.”

“I've been getting pulled from newspapers for my entire career.”

“Any time you bring sexuality into the comics pages, you have to brace for pushback.”

“I found that not having a public profile was not hurting the work, and it freed me up to be the satirist I wanted to be.”

“Humor can inform and break down stigma, which is a huge issue in the military.”

“Having stretched the boundaries some, I'm perfectly content now to work within them. 'Doonesbury' doesn't need to become 'South Park.' You won't ever see any singing turds.”

“For the most part, editors no longer view 'Doonesbury' as a rolling provocation, which is fine by me. It makes no sense to intentionally antagonize the very people on whose support you most depend.”

“I'm a pointillist, just working my tiny little piece of the canvas. I'm not so good at perspective.”

“Becoming the new feminine ideal requires just the right combination of insecurity, exercise, bulimia and surgery.”

“Satire is a form of social control, it's what you do. It's not personal. It's a job.”