Harvey Pekar Quotes
-
There was a survey done a few years ago that affected me greatly. it was discovered that intelligent people either estimate their intelligence accurately or slightly underestimate themselves, but stupid people overestimate their intelligence and by huge margins. And these were things like straight up math tests, not controversial IQ tests.
-
My parents' work ethic amazed me. How could they put in such long hours, day after day? Part of the reason was to keep the family going - to keep me going. I realized that, although we had different values derived from different cultures and wouldn't agree on certain issues, they were good people, incredible people, and I loved and respected them.
-
And no business can possibly equate happy workers community with profit effectiveness. Happy workers are much more productive workers and hence contribute to profit, but no organization is formed for the idea of pleasing its employees.
-
I'm doing research for a large comic book on the Beat Generation guys - Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and those guys...
-
It seemed to me you could do anything in comics. So I started doing my thing, which is mainly influenced by novelists, stand-up comedians, that sort of thing...
-
I just continue to be kind of disappointed that people don't realize that and try and diversify the kind of work they are doing in comics.
-
Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.
-
People who are readers of fiction aren't particularly interested in comic books.
-
I write scripts in storyboard fashion using stick figures, and thought balloons and word balloons and captions. Then I'll write descriptions of what scenes should look like and turn it over to the artist
-
American Splendor is just an ongoing journal. It's an ongoing autobiography. I started it when I was in my early 30s, and I just keep going.
-
I met Robert Crumb in 1962; he lived in Cleveland for a while. I took a look at his stuff. Crumb was doing stuff beyond what other writers and artists were doing. It was a step beyond Mad.
-
I really don't have a lot in common with the people who attend the Comic Con. It's like assuming that all people who write prose are the same.
-
Even a pretty traditional comic book writer can make valuable contributions to the Internet.
-
I decided I was going to tell these stories. I went around and met Crumb. He was the cartoonist. I started realizing comics weren't just kid stuff.
-
I'd been familiar with comics, and I'd collected 'em when I was a kid, but after I got into junior high school, there wasn't much I was interested in...
-
I thought I had a great opportunity when I started doing my comic book in 1972. I thought there was so much territory to work in.
-
I think you can do anything with comics that you could do in just about any art form.
-
I think comics have far more potential than a lot of people realize.
-
I felt more alone that week than any. Sometimes I'd feel a body lying next to me like an amputee feels a phantom limb. All I did was think about Jennie Gerhardt and Alice Quinn and all the decades of people I had known. The more I thought, the more I felt like crying. Life seemed so sweet and so sad, and so hard to let go of in the end. But hey, man, every day is a brand new deal, right? Just keep on working and something's bound to turn up.
-
I think that the so-called average person often exhibits a great deal of heroism in getting through an ordinary day . . .
-
I'm sure someone out there has a workable solution. But what do I know? I make comic books and write about jazz. I do know the difference between right and wrong, though.
-
When you're dead, it robs life of many of it's pleasures...
-
Am I a guy who writes about himself in a comic book, or am I just a character in that book? If I die, will that character keep going, or will he just fade away?
-
I always wanted praise and I always wanted attention; I won't lie to you. I was a jazz critic and that wasn't good enough for me. I wanted people to write about me, not me about them. So I thought, What could I do? I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't act or anything like that. OK, I can write.