Lynda Barry

“It's one thing to have a relationship, to lay your hands on it, and another to make it continue and last. That's something I haven't talked about much in my comic strips, and it's certainly something I'm interested in.”

“When you think about it, giving up your 'real' personality is a small price to pay for the richness of 'living happily ever after' with an actual man!”

“I used to live a very social life and never spend much solitary time looking at birds or reading.”

“If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile.”

“I do dumb stuff, like playing my favorite dumb Barry White song and lip-synching into the mirror so it looks like his voice is coming out of my mouth.”

“I tried to be like the richer kids as much as I could because I wanted to live on their streets, at least hang out on their streets and eat their amazing food and walk barefoot on their shag carpets. I became something of a pest in that way, and in general, other people's parents didn't like me.”

“I found myself compelled - like this weird, shameful compulsion - to draw cute animals.”

“Dear Anyone Who Finds This, Do not blame the drugs.”

“When I was working on 'Freddie,' I had been trying to write it on a computer for many, many years, but that delete button just won't let anything go forward.”

“Whenever I do a book, I'm usually guided by a question or something that I'm trying to tease out.”

“You keep seeing your picture on posters that you are missing but you're not. That'd be weird, right? Or say you look down at the sidewalk and earthworms are spelling your name. Or you open a peanut bag and the 'hello' is written in your writing on the inside of the shell. Would that weird ya?”

“'Good Times' is a story about the loss of innocence, how adults are responsible for their actions but children aren't.”

“If I didn't try to eavesdrop on every bus ride I take or look for the humor when I go for a walk, I would just be depressed all the time.”

“It's much easier to teach writing, because people are less shy about writing. If they're in a group, nobody can see what they're writing. When you're drawing, people get a little more nervous.”

“I am not sure how much I would like being married if I wasn't married to him. A man who likes flea markets and isn't gay? I knew I was lucky.”

“Kids don't plan to play. They don't go: 'Barbie, Ken, you ready to play? It's gonna be a three-act.'”

“I've gotten a lot of livid letters about the awfulness of my work. I've never known what to make of it. Why do people bother to write if they hate what I do?”

“Race and class are the easiest divisions. It's very stupid.”

“I need to be cheered up a lot. I think funny people are people who need to be cheered up.”

“We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality. We create it to be able to stay.”