Art Spiegelman Quotes & Sayings

I'm supposed to be making comics, so I had to do it the best way I knew how, which is what those guys at the beginning of the Twentieth Century were doing. — Art Spiegelman

Some of the reviewers wanted less. Some wanted lots more. Some wanted lots more of something else. But these strips are exactly what they are. — Art Spiegelman

Comics are a gateway drug to literacy. — Art Spiegelman

I wanted to create comics as soon as a I learned humans were behind them, that they were not natural phenomena like trees and boulders. — Art Spiegelman

There's a therapeutic aspect to all making, but the nature of working is to compress, condense, and shape stuff, not to just expunge it. It's not just an exorcism. — Art Spiegelman

DOWN THESE MEAN STREETS A MIDGET MUST GO! — Art Spiegelman

In 1908, you could easily earn $20 to $200 as a cartoonist. What's amazing is that it's still true! — Art Spiegelman

I know this is insane, but I somehow wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could really know what they lived through! I guess it's some kind of guilt about having had an easier life than they did. — Art Spiegelman

One way of understanding a graphic novel is that it's an ambitious comic and one way or another my comics have had ambitions. I have no problem with escapism. When I get my depressions all I want to do is escape reality. — Art Spiegelman

Instead of yelling at a TV set, I get to talk. — Art Spiegelman

I became a degenerate artist. My parents were shaped by their own experiences, and artists weren't so useful in the death camps. — Art Spiegelman

Sometimes I don't feel like a functioning adult — Art Spiegelman

I live in my own bubble. I was looking for an audience that wouldn't necessarily be looking for escapism when they came to my comics. — Art Spiegelman

Style is a capitalist invention. It's a trademark. It's very useful in the world of commerce to have a good trademark, but it wasn't my first concern. I got restless — Art Spiegelman

A manifesto, a diary, a crumpled suicide note, and a still relevant love letter. — Art Spiegelman

Disaster is my muse. — Art Spiegelman

What's called art now probably has some legitimate things happening in it, but I've become more and more distrustful of a lot of it because it seems like an extension of the fashion trade and the stock market. — Art Spiegelman

Yes, life always takes the side of life, and somehow the victims are blamed. But it wasn't the best people who survived, nor did the best ones die. It was random! — Art Spiegelman

I'm not talking about YOUR book now, but look at how many books have already been written about the Holocaust. What's the point? People haven't changed ... Maybe they need a newer, bigger Holocaust. — Art Spiegelman

Comics seem to be cooking these days. It's like being a rock star. — Art Spiegelman

With any work worth its salt, you have to trust the author enough to take its measure. And if you apply too many preconceptions, you are not taking its measure. — Art Spiegelman

I think as soon as I figured out - and this must have been incredibly young - that comic books were made by humans, rather than being natural phenomenon likes trees or rocks, I just wanted to be one of the people who did that. So I was copying all kinds of cartoons that I was reading, comic books, and eventually learned how to draw cartoon books step-by-step and just, I don't know, I'm not an especially quick learner, but I sure was a dedicated one. — Art Spiegelman

I always have been and will remain someone who loves real, 3D, substantial books. And I don't believe that it's a wistful, nostalgic interest like vinyl collectors. It's not the same thing. — Art Spiegelman

I always had more allergies toward the superhero comics than the others. I thought those were aimed more toward the people who would beat me up. — Art Spiegelman

Samuel Beckett once said, "Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness."
...On the other hand, he SAID it. — Art Spiegelman

Comics can be pernicious, fascist propaganda or anti-authoritarian. The ones that shaped me were particularly anti-authoritarian. — Art Spiegelman

I think a lot of America turned to art and culture after Sept. 11. I know the sales of bibles went shooting up, but so did the sales of poetry. I think in a crisis one looks to one's culture, partially to give validation to why one would want that culture to survive. — Art Spiegelman

I would say that, in the future, the book will be reserved for things that function best as a book. So, if I need a textbook that's going to be out of date because of new technological inventions, you're better off having it where you can download the supplements or the update. — Art Spiegelman

No matter what I accomplish, it doesn't seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz. — Art Spiegelman

To die, it's easy. But you have to struggle for life. — Art Spiegelman

No, darling! To die it's easy ... But you have to stuggle for life! — Art Spiegelman

Well, I am not 100 percent sure of the definition of polemic, but it wasn't meant to convince anybody of anything. — Art Spiegelman

The technology that threatens to kill off books as we know them - the 'physical book,' a new phrase in our language - is also making the physical book capable of being more beautiful than books have been since the middle ages. — Art Spiegelman

If they brought you here,They'll put you to work. THEY'RE not readyto kill you YET. — Art Spiegelman

I became comfortable with what I knew would be the process of trying to pick up the pieces of brain that were in the rubble and tried to make some mosaic out of the pieces and that that would be the trajectory. — Art Spiegelman

Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week ... Then you could see what it is, friends! ... — Art Spiegelman