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" When you learn about stories in school, you get it backward. You start to think 'Oh, the reason these things are in stories is because a book said I need to put these things in there.' You need a death, as my husband says, and you need a little sidekick with a saying like 'Skivel-dee-doo!' "

Lynda Barry

School

You

Book

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" The strips are nearly effortless unless I am really emotionally upset, a wreck. "

Lynda Barry

Effortless

I Am

" I listen like mad to any conversation taking place next to me just trying to hear why this is funny. Women's restrooms are especially great. I wash my hands twice waiting for people to come in and start talking. "

Lynda Barry

Women

People

" I tried to be like the richer kids as much as I could because I wanted to live on their streets, at least hang out on their streets and eat their amazing food and walk barefoot on their shag carpets. I became something of a pest in that way, and in general, other people's parents didn't like me. "

Lynda Barry

Parents

Live

" When I work on a book, I usually start with a question. And I don't sit around and go 'I need to write a book. What's a good question?' It will be a question that's just clanging around in my head. So for 'What It Is,' it was this idea of 'What is an image?' "

" When I was working on 'Freddie,' I had been trying to write it on a computer for many, many years, but that delete button just won't let anything go forward. "

Lynda Barry

Years

Working

" Love will make a way out of no way. "

" I live in constant fear of being fired or dropped for that dark part of my work I can't control. "

" Cartoonist was the weirdest name I finally let myself have. I would never say it. When I heard it I silently thought, what an awful word. "

" Remember when you were in school and the teacher would put a picture under an overhead projector so you could see it on the wall? God, I loved that. Tellya the truth, I used to look at that beam of light and think it was God. "

" I run a tight ship, but I try and make it seem like I'm not doing that at all. "

" 'Good Times' is a story about the loss of innocence, how adults are responsible for their actions but children aren't. "

" The minute you understand racism, you're responsible for being racist. It's like eating from the tree of knowledge. "

" The library was open for one hour after school let out. I hid there, looking at art books and reading poetry. "

" My childhood is always going to limit me. "

Lynda Barry

Limit

Going

" We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality. We create it to be able to stay. "

" When you think about it, giving up your 'real' personality is a small price to pay for the richness of 'living happily ever after' with an actual man! "

" I do dumb stuff, like playing my favorite dumb Barry White song and lip-synching into the mirror so it looks like his voice is coming out of my mouth. "

" For horror movies, color is reassuring because, at least in older films, it adds to the fakey-ness. "

" Whenever I do a book, I'm usually guided by a question or something that I'm trying to tease out. "

" For 'Picture This,' I wanted it to be a drawing book that didn't have any instructions about drawing, beyond the real simple stuff you'd find like in a Bazooka bubblegum wrapper, or in 'Highlights' magazine. I just wanted it to be feelings about looking and seeing and pictures. "

" I look crazy. I know I do. Been true since I was a kid! "

" 'What It Is' was based on this class I've been teaching for 10 years - I wanted to write a book about writing that didn't mention stuff like story structure, protagonists, and all those things that we know about only because they already exist in stories. "

" Remember how you used to be able to feel your bed breathing and the walls spinning when you were a kid? "

" I grew up in a house that had a whole lot of trouble. As much trouble as you could imagine. "

" I think of images as an immune system and a transit system. "

" I started doing cartoons when I was about 21. I never thought I would be a cartoonist. It happened behind my back. I was always a painter and drawer. "

" It's one thing to have a relationship, to lay your hands on it, and another to make it continue and last. That's something I haven't talked about much in my comic strips, and it's certainly something I'm interested in. "

" No one stopped me from playing when I was alone, but there were times when I wasn't able to, though I wanted to... There were times when nothing played back. Writers call it 'writer's block.' For kids there are other names for that feeling, though kids don't usually know them. "

" Kids don't plan to play. They don't go: 'Barbie, Ken, you ready to play? It's gonna be a three-act.' "

" I believe a kid who is playing is not alone. There is something brought alive during play, and this something, when played with, seems to play back. "