"Everything that is strong in me has gone into my art work."

"For some reason I ended up a total artist dreamer and only able to cope with life through my work. My work was strong, but the rest of me was very, very weak. I am a slightly more balanced person now that I've gotten older, but when I was young, without the drawing I'm sure I would be dead. And once I got well-known for the drawing, then the world was killing me in another way. They just were rolling over me like a steamroller."

"When I was in Cologne [Germany] for this show [the Museum Ludwig] had of my stuff, I did a question-and-answer thing on the stage. This one woman in the back of the room asked very hostile questions. Then later she handed me a letter which was so filled with anger and resentment and hostility about me, saying, you know, why do I have to draw the way I do, that I should be more enlightened. I've gotten that sort of thing a lot. And I understand. I can't blame women for having that reaction to my work. I certainly see why they would, or why black people might think my work is racist. I can see why they might think those things, even though I feel that I have to reveal all of the various complicated contradictions and emotions and feelings that are in me. I just have this compulsion to lay it all out there."

"I don't want to be a propagandist. I can't. The thing I'm best at is just expressing my own personal absurdity, or something. That's all I'm really comfortable doing."

"The world is full of bad advice. A few years ago this guy wanted me to do artwork for his company and he offered to pay me in stock options. I refused, even though all these people, including our accountant, urged me to take the offer. They'd say, "What? Are you crazy? You don't want stock options?" I said, "No, I want money!" That company went bust, but I got paid well. I don't want anything to do with that stock market crap."

"...Sometimes I think I'm America's answer to Leonardo da Vinci or Shakespeare. Then, when I'm in a sensible mood, it seems I'll end up doing filler illustrations for pamphlets or third-rate pocketbook covers, or sign-painting. Only time will tell... I don't think I've produced anything that has expressed what I feel to the fullest extent yet... Perhaps I never will... It's extremely difficult to express the heart and soul in physical terms. So many things get in the way."

"When I started at American Greetings, they put me in a training program with the stipulation that I would attend art school. I said I would but never did."

"As far as visual art goes, it has to reveal something about reality that you can't really put into words. Any artist who can explain his work in words is not exactly on the right track. It's tough. You're always probing down in the dark and you revel things to yourself as you do your art. People who use formulas or use their skill mainly just to make money...I dont know they can stand it. It must become very boring, I would think."

"When I'm not drawing, I'm NOTHING."

"I have never developed a sure, fast line. I don't have it in me. My line is quivery, nurotic and uncertain, which, hidden under a lot of cross-hatching, works. Cross-hatching can cover up a lot of weaknesses...and with a liberal use of white-out, there you have it."

"The world of galleries, museums, art openings, the buying and selling of original art to collectors, was never what I had in mind when I drew...My colleagues and I looked upon the fine-art world with a smirking contempt. But it's the same old story. The moment these cake-eaters from uptown decide to grace us with their lavish praise and red carpet attention, we eat it up, we take the money, we let them buy us dinner in expensive joints. Hey it's about time, right? Am I impressed? Yes, I admit it, I am... Pathetic, but there it is."

"I didn't invent anything; it's all there in the culture; it's not any big mystery. I just combine my personal experience with classic cartoon stereo-types..."