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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Roz Chast

Think

You

Know

" 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

" 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 think of my drawing style like handwriting: it's a mix of whatever handwriting you're born with, plus bits and pieces you've pilfered from other people around you. "

" You might have a worry that's so stupid it just peters out by itself, like a bad investment. "

" 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 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? "

" I like being able to go grocery shopping and not feel that I'm fighting a thousand people. "

Roz Chast

Feel

Fighting

" I don't like holidays. And I don't like crowds of people. I don't like noise. "

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

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

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

Roz Chast

Afraid

Always

" I can't even look at daily comic strips. And I hate sitcoms because they don't seem like real people to me: they're props that often say horrible things to each other, which I don't find funny. I have to feel like they're real people. "

Roz Chast

Look

People

" 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. "

" For me, drawing was an outlet. No one in school said, 'Oh, she can do sports,' or, 'She's pretty,' but I could draw. "

Roz Chast

Sports

Said

" 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

" When my father died, my mother was still alive. And I think when your second parent dies, there is that shock: 'Oh man, I'm an orphan.' There's also this relief: It's done; it's finished; it's over. "

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

" 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

" 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 sometimes suffer from insomnia. And when I can't fall asleep, I play what I call the alphabet game. "

" The wonderful thing about the cartoon form is it's a combination of words and pictures. You don't have to choose, and the contribution of the two often winds up being greater than the sum of its parts. "

" 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. "

" I have an African gray parrot; her name is Eli. We thought she was a boy. And a blue-streaked lory named Marco. He's 10. And a yellow and green parakeet, Petey. He's very cute, but he's getting old. "

" One way of paying tribute to my parents was 'bearing witness' as the Quakers do - writing down everything that was happening instead of turning my back on it and pretending that it was all great. "

" I think, especially with my parents, I wanted to remember who they were. I wanted to remember all of it. I didn't want to purge myself of it. I wanted to remember it. "

" Childhood - that was not my favorite time in my life. "

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

" 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. "

" I always imagined my little cartoons on plates for some reason. "