Lynda Barry Quotes
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I need to be cheered up a lot. I think funny people are people who need to be cheered up.
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The minute you understand racism, you're responsible for being racist. It's like eating from the tree of knowledge.
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I wasn't afraid to be laughed at or be loud.
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Humor is such a wonderful thing, helping you realize what a fool you are but how beautiful that is at the same time.
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When I work on a book, I usually start with a question. And I don't sit around and go 'I need to write a book. What's a good question?' It will be a question that's just clanging around in my head. So for 'What It Is,' it was this idea of 'What is an image?'
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I do love to eavesdrop. It's inspirational, not only for subject matter but for actual dialogue, the way people talk.
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I am about as detailed as a shadow.
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When you learn about stories in school, you get it backward. You start to think 'Oh, the reason these things are in stories is because a book said I need to put these things in there.' You need a death, as my husband says, and you need a little sidekick with a saying like 'Skivel-dee-doo!'
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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?
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Playing and fun are not the same thing, though when we grow up we may forget that and find ourselves mixing up playing with happiness. There can be a kind of amnesia about the seriousness of playing, especially when we played by ourselves.
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I grew up in a house that had a whole lot of trouble. As much trouble as you could imagine.
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I believe a kid who is playing is not alone. There is something brought alive during play, and this something, when played with, seems to play back.
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Kids don't plan to play. They don't go: 'Barbie, Ken, you ready to play? It's gonna be a three-act.'
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For 'Picture This,' I wanted it to be a drawing book that didn't have any instructions about drawing, beyond the real simple stuff you'd find like in a Bazooka bubblegum wrapper, or in 'Highlights' magazine. I just wanted it to be feelings about looking and seeing and pictures.
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For horror movies, color is reassuring because, at least in older films, it adds to the fakey-ness.
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My strips are not always funny, and they can be pretty grim at times, and I know I lose readers because of it, but I can't do anything about it - my work is very much connected to something I need to do in order to feel stable.
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It's not hard for me to be funny in front of people, but most of that is just horrified nerves taking the form of what makes people laugh, and afterwards I'd always feel dreadfully depressed, kind of self-induced bi-polar disorder.
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No one stopped me from playing when I was alone, but there were times when I wasn't able to, though I wanted to... There were times when nothing played back. Writers call it 'writer's block.' For kids there are other names for that feeling, though kids don't usually know them.
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The thing that really struck me when I went to junior high was class. I grew up on a pretty poor street, but the school district I was in included some fine neighborhoods - so I got to know a couple of the kids from those places and went to their houses and experienced such culture shock.
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Race and class are the easiest divisions. It's very stupid.
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People think that whatever I put into strips has happened to me in my life.
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Part of a horror movie has to be a bit fakey for me to really enjoy it. The new ones are so realistic that they distract me from the ride through the horror.
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I think of images as an immune system and a transit system.
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The library was open for one hour after school let out. I hid there, looking at art books and reading poetry.