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" I think when your parents die, it is kind of like a moving sidewalk: you're not just on the sideline and watching them go by. You know, you're going to the same place they are. "

Roz Chast

You

Moving

Know

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" My life is so boring that your brains are going to melt and come out of your eyes. "

" My parents were very, very close; they pretty much grew up together. They were born in 1912. They were each other's only boyfriend and girlfriend. They were - to use a contemporary term I hate - co-dependent, and they had me very late. So they had their way of doing things, and they reinforced each other. "

Roz Chast

Parents

Together

" In Brooklyn, I don't feel that I'm holding up people with briefcases if I catch a stroller wheel in the sidewalk. "

Roz Chast

People

Wheel

" I used to think of the cartoons as a magazine within a magazine. First you go through and read all the cartoons, and then you go back and read the articles. "

" I cannot stand superheroes. I do not understand any of its appeal. It has just bored me to death since I was a little kid. "

" I love detail, like drawing what's on top of someone's coffee table. Maybe there's a little bowl of butterscotch candies on it, next to the four TV remotes. "

" Sometimes, you know - I think, with a lot of things, at the time, everything is extremely upsetting, and then you look back on it, and it actually can be sort of funny. "

" My parents were fine at 85. So 85's nothing. 100 is another thing. I have a friend whose mother is about to turn 101, and it's not great. "

" I don't like going into the basement. I'm always afraid that something's going to blow up. "

Roz Chast

Afraid

Always

" I've had people ask me if it would have been easier to take care of your parents if you had siblings, and I think it's 50/50. I know people who have siblings, and there is a lot of acrimony because somebody always feels that they are doing more than the other person. "

" I don't like cartoons that take place in Nowhereville. I like cartoons where I know where they're happening. "

" I think I have a habit of, in my head, taking notes on whatever, you know, whether they're verbal or pictorial or just making a note of things as they're happening. "

" I had to get good grades and do well in school - my mother was an assistant principal and my father was a teacher - and they took this very seriously. "

" Even if you don't have any dishes, you need a celery dish. "

" I've always wanted to learn how to hook rugs. A wonderful artist named Leslie Giuliani taught me how. The nice thing is you can change it as you go along. "

" I don't like anything that looks gelatinous - really weirds me out. But when I was a kid, I used to get very, very upset if anything had a kind of chalky texture; like, certain kinds of cottage cheese I know have a weird chalkiness. "

Roz Chast

Upset

Weird

" Grime is not like messiness or some fingerprints on a cabinet; it takes a long time to accumulate. "

Roz Chast

Some

Long Time

" I think that children's books should be censored not for references to sex but for references to diseases. I mean, who didn't think after reading 'Madeline' that they were going to get appendicitis? "

" My kids always joked that I spent more time cooking the birds' food than I have cooking for them. And it's probably true. "

" I'm sure that my parents' behavior has entered my work, I'm sorry to say. I don't think you need to have a difficult childhood to be funny, but it helps. "

" My parents were born in 1912; they graduated from college into the Depression. They kept notebooks of every nickel they spent, and these habits of frugality from having grown up so poor never left them. "

" My father was in terrible pain towards the end because of his bed sores, and he did go into hospice, and I think that was better in some ways. You know, I think his death was peaceful, and it was all right. He was just in terrible pain. "

" I've done a lot of death cartoons - tombstones, Grim Reaper, illness, obituaries... I'm not great at analyzing things, but my guess is that maybe the only relief from the terror of being alive is jokes. "

" I love my parents. I did love them. It's complicated. "

" Sunday, there's not a lot of structure. I might spend an hour thinking about why I don't exercise, and feeling very guilty about not exercising. I tried running, over 10 years ago. It didn't really take. "

" There's something about most phobias where there's a tiny, tiny corner where you think this really actually could happen. "

" It's like a 'chicken or the egg' thing. We're all part of the culture. We're reflecting it; we're changing it. So, yeah, I think culture is always changing. "

" Did you know that you can live on Ensure for a year? A person can live for a really long time just lying in bed and drinking Ensure - way longer than you think. "

" My parents scrimped and saved all their lives, to the point where my mother used a disgusting old oven mitt that was stained and partly patched together with a skirt I made in seventh grade. "

" It was deeply interesting to observe my mother closely and to draw her. During those last months, she wasn't speaking much, if at all, and it was a way for me to be with her. It felt very natural. "