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" Perhaps life is actually more confusing and unknowable to an adult than a child, but grown-ups have learned to deceive themselves and act as if they understand what's going on; and some are elected to high office on the basis of their ability to create this impression. "

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" Many people first encounter Jesus during childhood when they are suddenly confronted by a horrifying statue of a man nailed to a cross, and this is often a most unfortunate and repulsive beginning. "

Michael Leunig

Childhood

Beginning

First

" It is known that wildfires behave unpredictably - this is fundamental - but it is my experience that humans in the presence of wildfire are also likely to behave in aberrant and unpredictable ways. "

" It's a consoling notion that death is a very tiny hole, and you need to make yourself very small to get through it. One obviously needs to lighten off, and a rucksack full of bricks or a mantelpiece full of trophies will certainly have to be abandoned - the sooner the better, I say. "

" I have not much love for the bright lights - unless it's the sun creeping up over the horizon. "

" I increasingly wonder whether most humans are in a constant state of unconsciously fearing each other. Perhaps they fear how intimately different other people might be to them, and the problem is that there is no real way of finding out just how huge that difference might be. "

" I think melancholy is part of the natural condition, you know. Anyway, I think it's the artist's function to have their melancholy and not hide it, you see. "

" As we grow, we lift our gaze higher and higher, and then sometimes we are brought to our knees, but all is not lost; what we find on the ground can be very valuable and precisely what we need. "

" Two's company and three's a crowd, but seven can be an uprising. And the seven can become 70 or 700 or 7000 very quickly if the sense of being wronged is felt broadly and truly enough. "

" We might imagine that Jesus had many human faults. He failed most humanly, in my reckoning, when he killed the fig tree just because it didn't bear any figs for his breakfast; that was a disgraceful, bad-tempered thing to do, and to try and make a virtue of it by saying it was a demonstration of faith only made things worse. "

" What modern humans need help with is escaping from the despair of politics, commerce and media, escaping from the drabness and oppressiveness of worldly values and seeing through suburban mentality and normal community standards so that they can find some much-needed relief for their wilting souls. "

" People seem to take as much offence as they possibly can these days - it's almost a new type of greed, a new kind of road rage. "

" When I was a boy, my own dad told me in a smiling and wistful way that it's a wise man that knows his own father. "

" To live in the midst of suffering, which we do, we do, amid distress, and to keep some equilibrium in the midst of that - that would be happiness enough. "

" Pursuit is a rather desperate act in itself. There's something kind of frantic about the notion of pursuit. "

" There's a particular sensitivity required to be an artist, and a certain vulnerability, perhaps, and also, somewhere between, you're in your body a lot, too. It's much more physical than one would imagine because I think it's the body where the imagination lives somehow. I do feel the imagination isn't just in the brain up there. "

" Meat workers may have been looked down upon socially, but at least they were well-paid and were a fit and lively bunch as a result of hard, honest physical work. "

" I have always loved contemporary dance, but it has always been a bit of a mystery to me. But choreography is very much like what I do when you are putting characters in frame on the page. It's so impressive what they do with their bodies. It's like painting: an abstraction. "

" The hypocrisy of some is that we like to think of ourselves as sophisticated and evolved, but we're still also driven by primal urges like greed and power. "

" I was a reflective child. "

Michael Leunig

Reflective

Child

" Wisdom may best arise from a humbling reality. "

" Every child is a greedy child, I think. I mean, it's healthy to be a greedy child. "

" The insatiable need for heartless power and ruthless control is the telltale sign of an uninitiated man - the most irresponsible, incompetent and destructive force on earth. "

" There can be many reasons to travel, but wandering into the world for no particular reason is a sublime madness, which in all its whimsy and pointlessness may depict the story of life - and indeed could be a useful model to keep in mind, seeing as so much of life's ambition comes unstuck or leads to nothing much at all. "

" While the world may feel entitled and have the power to pronounce an individual crazy, are there times when the innocent genius, the insightful individual or just the old grandmother may reasonably declare the world to be mad? Probably, but what hope or happiness would such an individual have? "

" Any cartoon that can be liked by a committee is really not worth drawing; in fact, must not be drawn at all! Better to become a stockbroker. "

" I became a cartoonist because I'd sort of failed at everything else, really. I mean, it was by default. "

" In contemporary art culture, where good looks and clever strategic planning of art careers have become a feature, professional practice may be taught in art schools like a branch of public relations or political science. "

" I have sometimes done cartoons that are hurtful to people - immature, spiteful stuff. Some are so self-indulgent, and some have just failed. I look back and sometimes cringe. But one regret as I get older is that I haven't been radical and wild enough. "

" Citizens, regardless of their political inclinations, carry a devout sense of their shared culture and its temperament - and, having contributed to it all their lives, hold decent and reasonable hopes for its continued integrity. "

" In my adolescence, I think I felt very outcast; I felt lonely. I felt great loneliness, and sometimes I wouldn't partake in Christmas, and I would go off and wander in the streets of Melbourne. "

Michael Leunig

Christmas

Think