Matt Groening (Comic Artist)

Where do babies come from? Don't bother asking adults. They lie like pigs. However, diligent independent research and hours of playground consultation have yielded fruitful, if tentative, results. There are several theories. Near as we can figure out, it has something to do with acting ridiculous in the dark. We believe it is similar to dogs when they act peculiar and ride each other. This is called "making love". Careful study of popular song lyrics, advertising catch-lines, TV sitcoms, movies, and T-Shirt inscriptions offers us significant clues as to its nature. Apparently it makes grown-ups insipid and insane. Some graffiti was once observed that said "sex is good." All available evidence, however, points to the contrary.

— Matt Groening love

Here's to alcohol: the cause of, and answer to, all of life's problems.

— Matt Groening life

There's always room out there for the hand-drawn image. I personally like the imperfection of hand drawing as opposed to the slick look of computer animation. But you can do good stuff either way. The Pixar movies are amazing in what they do, but there's plenty of independent animators who are doing really amazing things as well.

— Matt Groening good

Sometimes people try to read into my strip and find out what my state of mind is. And I can say if I'm in a good mood, generally the comic strip starts out in a good mood, but the punchline is very negative and sour.

— Matt Groening time

On 'The Simpsons,' I will say that we definitely like to comment on what's going on in the world, and we try to be funny. If we can figure out a way of being funny about it, then we've gone part of the way of accomplishing our task.

— Matt Groening funny

Donuts. Is there anything they can't do?

— Matt Groening

Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.

— Matt Groening love

Living creatively is really important to maintain throughout your life. And living creatively doesn't mean only artistic creativity, although that's part of it. It means being yourself, not just complying with the wishes of other people.

— Matt Groening life

God often gives nuts to toothless people.

— Matt Groening people

Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun.

— Matt Groening you

People go into cartooning because they're shy and they're angry. That's when you're sitting in the back of a classroom drawing the teacher.

— Matt Groening art

I don't have to be careful, I've got a gun.

— Matt Groening care

As astute followers of 'Life in Hell' will notice, Akbar and Jeff wear the same striped T-shirt as Charlie Brown. 'Peanuts' was very important to me.

— Matt Groening will

'The Simpsons' is about alienation and the ambivalence of living with a family who you love but who drive you completely crazy.

— Matt Groening love

'The Simpsons' basically - and 'Futurama' - are really smart shows. They're kind of disguised as these goofy animated sitcoms, but the references within the shows, if you're paying attention, are pretty smart and pretty sophisticated.

— Matt Groening art

It's a funny show. The characters are surprisingly likable, given how ugly they are. We've got this huge cast of characters that we can move around. And over the last few seasons, we've explored some of the secondary characters' personal lives a bit more.

— Matt Groening funny

Nihilism in American comedy came along way before 'The Simpsons.' There was a fairly nihilistic point of view to 'Saturday Night Live,' for instance, back in the beginning, and a lot of really dark comedy had a really anti-sentimental take on life.

— Matt Groening life

Well, most grown-ups forget what it was like to be a kid. I vowed that I would never forget.

— Matt Groening

You've got to embrace the future. You can whine about it, but you've got to embrace it.

— Matt Groening future

With Charlie Brown, it was about loneliness and isolation. I always thought that the thing about Charlie Brown and those characters was the absence of the parents. Half the strip was about who wasn't there. The parents were never in the picture.

— Matt Groening loneliness

Because good writing in a TV cartoon is so rare, I think the animation on The Simpsons is often overlooked.

— Matt Groening writing

In 'Futurama,' the skin color is no longer yellow. They have actually evolved to cartoon skin tone. But they still have four fingers.

— Matt Groening art

My standard comment is, 'If you don't want your kids to be like Bart Simpson, don't act like Homer Simpson.'

— Matt Groening art

When DVDs finally disappear, I'm going to be sad. I'll miss the commentaries.

— Matt Groening men

I basically drew my own family. My father's name is Homer. My mother's name is Margaret. I have a sister Lisa and another sister Maggie, so I drew all of them. I was going to name the main character Matt, but I didn't think it would go over well in a pitch meeting, so I changed the name to Bart.

— Matt Groening art

Heres to alcohol: the cause of, and answer to, all of lifes problems.

— Matt Groening life

The conundrum that I face on a daily basis is that I have two sons who have grown up watching The Simpsons, so they know exactly what buttons to push. They know how Bart irritates Homer, and they use these lines against me to tell me that Im not funny anymore.

— Matt Groening funny

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