Stephan Pastis Quotations

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.

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.

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.'

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 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.

A biscuit in the States is something you would put gravy on with dinner, and it's not sweet in the least!

If somebody is not on the same page with me humor wise, I can't give them that.

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

The principles of comedy are the principles of comedy. I can hear funny.

To get syndicated as a comic strip artist is as likely as winning the lottery.

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

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.

If you're from a certain generation, you basically learn to read with 'Peanuts.' It's sort of the template for the modern strip. Its influence ceased to be noticed because it's in everything.

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.

I have days where the only words I say are to the person making my sandwich at the grocery store.

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.

A comic strip has a rhythm and a pattern, and you got to get in and out quick. So you set up a joke, tell the joke, and done.

Brits have a better sense of humor in most ways. It's darker, more cutting.

I think it might surprise the average person how angry people can get over the comics.

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

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

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.

I guess that compared to other comic strips, I'm edgy. But put me along something like 'South Park,' and I'm 'Captain Kangaroo.'

I know I can always draw, but I actually love the writing the most.

I was a total stranger to him, and he let me sit down at his table and we talked for an hour, ... I took a picture with him. He looked at some of the strips that I had been doing and gave me some tips. Man, I was on cloud nine.

He looked like a Midwesterner, but he was a rebel, ... He is to comics what Brando was to movies. He broke ground that allowed me to ultimately exist.

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.

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?

My philosophy from looking at Dilbert was the art must not matter that much, because he was the biggest hit of the day, ... He didn't draw that well and neither did I. I figured if he could do it, maybe I had a chance.

I wish I didn't have to do it. But I'm standing on the deck of the Titanic and see the iceberg coming,

I write for three or four hours and then hopefully I'll have something. Then I draw for the rest of the afternoon... I literally block out Wednesday-Thursday-Friday - I more or less disappear.

mostly as an outlet just to do something during class.

Those lectures were just terrible, ... I would draw this little rat who was on four legs. Whatever thoughts I had for the day I gave to him. It was therapeutic.

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.

When you do anything creative, you really have to live entirely in that world. I think my ability to do that is what makes me such a bad dinner guest. I'm always looking over someone's shoulder, taking in stuff around the room, immersed in the world of whatever I'm writing about, and keeping the characters completely in my head.

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.

I want a career writing these novels that I can be proud of. And then I want one as a screenwriter.

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

It was really just a product of hating being a lawyer so much, ... What can I do to get out of doing what I'm doing now?

I want to shake things up like Bloom County did, ... When I was a kid I loved Calvin and I loved Far Side and I loved Bloom County. And I loved them because they took risks. You never knew what you were going to see that day. And there's not a lot of strips that do that now.

I want to shake things up like 'Bloom County' did.

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

I more or less stalked him. I guess that's the right word, ... I waited because I knew what time he came in for his English muffin and all that. Sure enough he showed up. I had some strips I had drawn, and I walked across the room.

If you put me in 'South Park,' that audience is going to fall asleep in five minutes.

If you look at other strips from the 1950s, he stuck out like a sore thumb. I'm sure he probably got some of the same complaint letters that I get now,

I have to update that, ... Jo Jo died. He got hit by a car.

If you see me on the comics page, you assume total smart-ass, with no regard to the older strips, ... When it comes to Peanuts, at least, it couldn't be further from the truth. I probably know more than anybody you'd ever meet.

Most poetry just confounds me. I really want to like it, but I can't help thinking it's a hoax. (p. 24)

My wife Staci made me go to a wedding last weekend...If it weren’t for her, I’d be happy.

I seem to be able to get away with pun strips if I add a panel at the end where I somehow indicate that I know it's a bad pun.

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.

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'.

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

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.

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.

When I say 'friends,' I use that term loosely, as I don't actually have any.

The phrase 'I just turn on my monkey and it makes me feel good' sounds very dirty, but I can't explain why. It's great to try to use expressions like that on the comics page. People want to complain but they can't, because they can't figure out quite what they should be complaining about.

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

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 dont know what they think.

The writing is done on the computer, and the drawing is done by hand. I write, write, write, then I hit the illustration.

If you put me in South Park, that audience is going to fall asleep in five minutes.

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

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

Whenever I see people with their collars up, I'm tempted to point it out to them like you would for someone who has a food stain on their shirt or food in their teeth, as if to say, 'Your fashion sense is so offensive I'm assuming it's some sort of accident you'll want to fix.