Jules Feiffer Quotes

Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.

Kids are in ongoing need of support, and they get various versions of it from grownups which aren’t legitimate – a grownup’s version of what we think you should have. We tell you what creativity is, and we even tell you what you’re thinking.

I’m not sure about that role any longer. The role used to be to mix things up and I think to a great extent it still is, but the quality of the work of the political cartoon has been succeeded by the wisecrack, the gag cartoon, so that the cartoonist becomes more of the equivalent of the Jay Leno monologues, or David Letterman monologues.

Jesus died to forgive our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?

I come out of a Cold War sensibility, a Cold War mentality, and during those Cold War years, I used to know, I thought, the answers to everything. And since the end of the Cold War, I’m just a dumb as everyone else.

Imagination continually frustrates tradition; that is its function.

That was exciting to be able to comment on civil rights. I mean, the civil rights movement that young people don’t know about today, but Martin Luther King was considered by the establishment press in the early years of the sit-in movement as a dangerous man, and he was the equivalent at that time as Malcolm X. And he was told to stop his demonstrations; they were against the law and all of that. Now that he’s sainted and sanctified we’ve forgotten.

I told the doctor I was overtired, anxiety-ridden, compulsively active, constantly depressed, with recurring fits of paranoia. Turns out I’m normal.

I’m well beyond dyslexic: I have no sense of direction; I never know where I am.

If you are not able to communicate successfully between yourself and yourself, how are you supposed to make it with the strangers outside?

Over the years, I discovered over and over again that once you lose control, you have a chance of getting good at it. And once you’re controlling the work, it’s not going to be very good, or it won’t be as good as it should be.

The artwork had very little to do with the thought process, and the writing too, for that matter. What happens, happens, and it happens outside the brain.