Ted Rall Quotes & Sayings

Even though I'm a leftist. I think the left eats its own. — Ted Rall

When you do a cartoon based on news headlines, you do it based on incomplete information. — Ted Rall

Hail, Columbia! Home of the six inch cockroach and the stadium-sized lecture hall. A reservation for rich white people guarded by poor brown people in a sea of urban decay. Where nobody on the faculty has ever spent ten minutes in the freshman dorm, but everybody talks about humanism and compassion. They teach you that military people are scum, trash, the lowest of the low
and then they assign Homer's ILIAD just to develop your sense of irony. Where else can you see three suicides a month dismissed as slightly above average, but better than Smith or Brown? — Ted Rall

I'm a better polemicist in prose. — Ted Rall

Trying to rebuild Afghanistan on the cheap has left the country in the hands of warlords and an impotent Northern Alliance puppet regime that runs Kabul and nothing else. — Ted Rall

Anyway, I tried liking Jimmy Corrigan but I couldn't. — Ted Rall

I think Maus I is better than Maus II. The standard here is whether or not it's as good as a great book of prose literature and by that standard, no, it's not that great. — Ted Rall

Conservative humor is frankly harder than liberal humor. You get points for just being liberal. You can get more points if you make fun of your own side sometimes. — Ted Rall

Silk Road to Ruin has all the analysis and it's structured very well. I rely on my notes more and I use direct quotes. But there's nothing like writing about it right away. — Ted Rall

Do our government's poorly paid contract killers deserve our 'support' for blindly following orders? — Ted Rall

It's a perfectly valid position to not like Shakespeare. — Ted Rall

When you have birds you stare at them a lot and their eyes are recessed on their head. When they look at something they tilt their head in a quizzical expression. — Ted Rall

Even now, years later, it's hard to tell why the government stood by and let the city of New Orleans be destroyed, dispatching troops rather than help. — Ted Rall

The purpose of revolution is to abolish unnecessary suffering. — Ted Rall

Anyone should be able to read comics. — Ted Rall

On the ground, Pakistan is the most virulently anti-American state on the planet. — Ted Rall

The best thing about being a cartoonist is to walk into a bar or someone's apartment and they don't know you, but they've taped one of your pieces up. — Ted Rall

We can wait for the system to collapse of its own accord, for the rage of the downtrodden and dispossessed to build, for chaos of some sort to expose and destroy it. But implosion might take a long time. And when it happens, we may find ourselves even more powerless than we are now. They - the hardcore, racist, undereducated, fundamentalist Christian, anit-civil liberties Right - are preparing to step into the breach, to seize power. They can't wait to unleash their venomous hatred on the city-dwelling commie hipster fags they despise. They are armed. They recognize that the system is doomed. They've seen this coming. They're organized and willing to merge their disparate brands of conservatism under a common leadership. Most importantly, they get it. They don't need to be convinced that everything is in play. They're putting it in play. — Ted Rall

I suppose I could have been nicer when I was at Columbia. I could have been polite, respectful, turned in my papers on time. Funny thing is, I knew a guy like that. English major. Loved to read. Never got in any trouble, just hung out in Butler Library reading poetry and English history. Ran into him the other day. Guy has three master's degrees, taught high school, even did a few years in the Marines. Know what he does today?
He makes $9.75 an hour as a librarian.
I was a jerk when I went to Columbia. But I was never a sucker. — Ted Rall

Orrin Hatch was the keynote speaker at the last meeting of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. He sought me out because he was a fan. I was thinking he had confused me with someone else. — Ted Rall

I think Dilbert is actually a radical strip. — Ted Rall

But now that I'm cartooning full-time, I'm more of an observer. I'm talking to people who are experiencing these things. But it's not like being in the trenches. — Ted Rall

At this point, American workers are pretty respectful of the bosses they loathe. — Ted Rall

The first step to stringing the boss up from a lamppost is saying the boss is a moron. — Ted Rall

Money stress is what used to remind me of my Dad most. — Ted Rall

I don't think anyone has written a great graphic novel. — Ted Rall

The word 'hero' has been bandied about a lot to refer to anyone killed in Afghanistan or Iraq. But anyone who voluntarily goes to Afghanistan or Iraq [as a soldier] is fighting for an evil cause under an evil commander in chief. — Ted Rall

I think jazz is good, but I don't enjoy it. It's not for me. — Ted Rall

I'm a better editorial cartoonist by default because so many editorial cartoonists out there are so awful. — Ted Rall

If I had to rank my skills, I have a long way to go before I can write a good graphic novel. — Ted Rall

Up until 1995, I still had a day job that I hated. I was still personally involved in things in the 90s. — Ted Rall

Most people don't know how to tell stories. — Ted Rall

When I put together a graphic novel, I don't think about literary prose. I think about storytelling. — Ted Rall

Saddam Hussein, influenced by fascism, ordered the deaths of tens of thousands of people, fought two disastrous wars, turned his nation into an international pariah and ruined his country's economy. In other words, his record is identical to George W. Bush's. — Ted Rall

Over time, however, the endless war in Iraq began to play a role in natural selection. Only idiots signed up; only idiots died. Back home, the average I.Q. soared. — Ted Rall

There was an honorable tradition of using anonymous sources that was ruined by Jayson Blair. — Ted Rall

Life is incredibly short, yet we're always told that change takes time. For a race of mortals, dicking around just isn't acceptable. — Ted Rall

I never consciously do any work directly influenced from any movie, unless I'm doing a parody. — Ted Rall

Close friends love you for who you are; not what they want you to be. — Ted Rall

The experts who managed the original Marshall Plan say Afghanistan needs a commitment of at least $5 to $10 billion over 5 to 10 years, coupled with occupation forces of 250,000 Allied soldiers to keep the peace throughout the country. — Ted Rall

Imagine foreign troops sitting idly, laughing as hooligans trashed the Smithsonian, stole the gold from Fort Knox and burned down the Department of the Interior. That was us in Iraq. — Ted Rall

I think we're the first generation to successfully integrate American society. — Ted Rall

Comics are too big. You can't say any kind or genre of comics is better than another. You can say so subjectively. But to say it like it's objective is wrong. It's wrong morally, because it cuts out stuff that's good. — Ted Rall