Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" Oftentimes, what seems to be a street lunatic charging at me spouting gibberish turns out to be a devoted 'Simpsons' fan quoting their favorite line. "
Matt Groening
Out
Line
Favorite
Related Quotes:
" I grew up completely overwhelmed by TV, and part of the reason why I have gone into television is as a way to justify to myself all those wasted hours of watching TV as a kid. I can now look back and say, 'Oh, that was research.' "
Matt Groening
Say
Look
Television
" I know for a fact, obviously, because my kids grew up watching the show, that there are some things they are introduced to from 'The Simpsons', and then later in life they see the thing we're parodying. My kids had not seen 'Casablanca,' and we'd done parodies of 'Casablanca.' "
Matt Groening
Life
Watching
Know
" 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
Picture
Loneliness
Thought
" The thing about a cartoon is, you can do whatever you want. The tightrope that we are walking on 'The Simpsons' and 'Futurama' is 'How do you continue to surprise the audience, but make them good surprises?' Not every surprise is good, but you want to continue jolting people. "
Matt Groening
You
Walking
Surprise
" I've loved science fiction ever since I was a little kid, mainly from looking at the covers of science-fiction magazines and books, and I've read quite extensively as an adult. "
Matt Groening
Science
Loved
Looking
" 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
Drawing
Good
Imperfection
" Everybody doesn't have to get every joke. People really appreciate not being condescended to. "
Matt Groening
Get
Joke
People
" A lot of our writers, like Conan O'Brien, moved on to other things. "
Matt Groening
Like
Our
Lot
" Don't have a cow, man. "
Matt Groening
Man
Cow
" The writers led by Mike Scully are fantastic. And they're creating original stories that not only don't repeat what we've already done, they also don't repeat anything I've seen on television. "
Matt Groening
Original
Done
Creating
" My father was a really sharp cartoonist and filmmaker. He used to tape-record the family surreptitiously, either while we were driving around or at dinner, and in 1963 he and I made up a story about a brother and a sister, Lisa and Matt, having an adventure out in the woods with animals. "
Matt Groening
Adventure
Father
Sister
" I also found child's play - stuff that was not considered serious, but goofy - was the stuff I liked to do, so I still do it as an adult. "
Matt Groening
Child
Still
Serious
" I think when 'The Simpsons' first came on, there was an uproar. People got used to it. They realized the show's really funny, it's got a heart, so I think it's pretty safe. "
Matt Groening
Heart
People
Show
" I don't have to be careful, I've got a gun. "
Matt Groening
Be Careful
Gun
Got
" I may be biting off more than I can chew, but with 'The Simpsons' and with 'Futurama,' what I'm trying to do in the guise of light entertainment, if this is possible - is nudge people, jostle them a little, wake them up to some of the ways in which we're being manipulated and exploited. "
Matt Groening
I Can
Light
People
" Because good writing in a TV cartoon is so rare, I think the animation on The Simpsons is often overlooked. "
Matt Groening
Think
Rare
Writing
" Cartooning is for people who can't quite draw and can't quite write. You combine the two half-talents and come up with a career. "
Matt Groening
Career
Up
Write
" 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
Mean
Yourself
" The best stories in our culture have some sort of subversiveness - Mark Twain, 'Catcher in the Rye.' You provide kids with great stories and teach them how to use the tools to make their own. "
Matt Groening
Great
Culture
You
" I always say that 'Futurama' is real, and 'The Simpsons' is fiction. "
Matt Groening
Fiction
Always
The Simpsons
" A lot of people believe that if everybody just did what they were told - obeyed - everything would be fine. But that's not what life is all about. That's not real. It's never going to happen. "
Matt Groening
People
Never
Real
" My standard comment is, 'If you don't want your kids to be like Bart Simpson, don't act like Homer Simpson.' "
Matt Groening
Act
Like
Want
" I went to Bali, and I was in a small village, and somebody who was with me showed a woman a little figurine of Bart and asked: 'Do you know who this is?' And she said: 'Mickey Mouse.' "
Matt Groening
Me
She
Small
" I draw a weekly comic strip called Life in Hell, which is syndicated in about 250 newspapers. That's what I did before The Simpsons, and what I plan to do for the rest of my life. "
Matt Groening
Hell
Rest
Plan
" 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
Live
Life
Beginning
" I've conducted an experiment on my kids. Instead of denying them access to media, I've encouraged it. They read comic books, play Nintendo and watch way too much TV. "
Matt Groening
Way
Media
Watch
" The really great thing about having two TV shows going on at the same time is that I can go to one and say that I have to go and visit the other, and then I can just go home, and they don't know. "
Matt Groening
Know
I Can
Home
" I loved literary science fiction. In fact, as a kid, when I was reading science fiction, I thought 'I can't wait for the future when the special effects are good' to represent what was in these books by Arthur C. Clarke, Alfred Bester, Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, Jack Vance. "
Matt Groening
Reading
Thought
Future
" I like all of the early relationship strips that were collected in 'Love Is Hell,' where I pretended to be an expert in relationships and did comics like 'The Nine Types of Boyfriends,' 'Sixteen Ways to End a Relationship,' 'Twenty-Four Things Not to Say in Bed,' and other arbitrarily numbered lists. "
Matt Groening
Love
Love Is
Relationship
" Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come. "
Matt Groening
Love Is
Love
Racing