Pat Oliphant

“I don't think there's more than half-a-dozen cartoons that I've been really truly happy with in all the time I've been doing it.”

“An outsider's point of view is always handy.”

“The fact that we're protected under that Constitution in exercising the right of free speech, it's a wonderful thing. You've got to come from somewhere else to realize how valuable it is.”

“I hate changes of administrations, because I have all my villains in place and they are all taken away and replaced with faceless wonders nobody knows.”

“If it were not for the fact that editors have become so timorous in these politically correct times, I would probably have a greater readership than I have.”

“So many cartoonists draw the same year after year. When they find a style, they stick with it. They don't mess with innovation, and they become boring.”

“We're all idealistic when young.”

“Even if you go to Australia today, it's very much like visiting a state you haven't been to.”

“Some days you feel like this is really going well. You can tell. Other days, you're just drawing like a farmer and you don't know why.”

“There were dragons to slay in the old days. Nixon was a good dragon.”

“I can always see what I've done wrong. I'm always learning. I'm the perennial student.”

“One-newspaper towns are not good because all the surviving newspaper does is print money. They make 25 percent on their money every year, and if they go down to 22 percent, they start laying people off.”

“I've been in Washington ever since 1981, trying to get out!”

“Journalism was looked upon as a more noble thing than it is now. I don't know if it carries the same cachet that it did then.”

“I see myself as an artist who happens to do cartoons.”

“There has always been quite a strong black and white art tradition in Australia, with quite a large contingent of cartoonists, given the size of the population.”

“I've always looked upon politics as a very boring thing. Politics never interested me as much as the people involved in it.”