Katchor Ben Quotes & Sayings

My first obligation is to entertain but as far as science fiction goes, it's much easier to comment on today from another time because people then aren't focused on 'did you get the details right?' It's sort of a Trojan horse approach to ideas because it's wrapped in the future, it's wrapped in action, thriller. — Andrew Niccol

In America, there's a very long tradition of a comic strip that comes in newspapers, which is not true all over the world. To sell papers, they put color comics in. — Ben Katchor

Don't be discouraged when your life boils hot. With just a little more toil, you'll reap from the soil. More oil to your elbows. Stay awake and make it happen! — Israelmore Ayivor

I was born Moishe Ketzelbourd but the Indians call me Maurice Cougar. — Ben Katchor

You see these unsold goods taking up space in busy stores and ask yourself, 'Who would ever buy such a thing? To whose antiquated and misguided sense of taste would such a thing appeal?' To the dead, I answer! The dead are the eternally out of fashion!
...
These piles of unsold goods are conclusive proof of the existence of an eternal and insatiable appetite. — Ben Katchor

The waves of pain that had only lapped at me before now reared high up and washed over my head, pulling me under. I did not resurface. — Stephenie Meyer

I'm very interested in music and where these sounds of Western music come from. — Ben Katchor

The collector attempts always to acquire the best, and his knowledge of what is best is always widening. His is the task of judging between degrees of perfection. — Arthur Davison Ficke

We Are Called We are all called. Called by the wind, the rushing water, the fireflies, the summer sun. Called by the sidewalk, the playground, the laughing children, the streetlights. Called by our appetites and gifts - our needs and challenges. Called by the bottle, the needle, the powder, the pill, the game, the bet, the need, the want, the pain, the cure, the love, the hope, the dream. Called by the Spirit of Love and Hope, and visions of God's purpose for our lives. We are all called. What do we choose? How do we answer? - Natalie Fenimore — Jacqui James

First of all, writing at best - certainly fiction writing - more and more I think is magic. — Kathy Acker

Mischievous smile. I remember reading about Calvin Klein's daughter. Every time she pulled down a lover's pants, she was confronted by her father's name on the band of his underwear. A total sex killer. — David Cronenberg

You need to listen to your body because your body is listening to you. — Phil McGraw

You can have your own watch and always doubt it. If I had a watch I'd probably always be doubting it or the batteries would be dying. I just know that people always have trouble with their watches, and that's why I like public clocks. — Ben Katchor

I live in an apartment building built in 1925, and it hasn't been heavily renovated, so I feel very much connected to that time and what went on in that place. — Ben Katchor

When you couple this militarization of law enforcement with an erosion of civil liberties and due process that allows the police to become judge and jury-national security letters, no-knock searches, broad general warrants, pre-conviction forfeiture-we begin to have a very serious problem on our hands. — Rand Paul

Indeed, bribery, favoritism, and corruption in a great variety of forms were rampant not only in politics, but in all levels of society. — David McCullough

You mean you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people, is that — William Goldman

I never wore a watch. I always depend on public clocks, and stores have clocks, but that is strange. — Ben Katchor

The fundamental axiom of economics is the human mercenary instinct. Without — Liu Cixin

Goat curry and a female librarian, that's what I'm in the mood for. — Ben Katchor

The publishing industry has always wanted to make books as cheaply and as ephemerally as they could; it's nothing new. — Ben Katchor

I always lived in old buildings, and I thought about who lived here before. You'd have to be oblivious not to. — Ben Katchor

Sometimes I make things that people have very strong responses to. Whether that's art, I don't know. That's one of those words that doesn't mean anything. It's why I don't just use words. — Ben Katchor

The click [of a light switch] is the modern triumphal clarion proceeding us through life, announcing our entry into every lightless room. — Ben Katchor

I remember as a child going to an exhibit about the Soviet Union, and every paper had this alien smell. The paper and the ink were all exported. It was like a piece of cheese from that country, you could touch it, feel it, smell it, and it was different. — Ben Katchor

As a small kid, I came across things like these early Edward Gorey books in department-store bookstores. These were these really unusual objects to me. I didn't know how they fit into the comic world or into newspaper comics. — Ben Katchor

He loved telling stories. He had been everywhere in the world. The northwest frontier, the landscape of the Hindu Kush, was one of the great landscapes of my childhood because he used to evoke it with his stories. He taught me the sequence of ranks in the British army when I was about eight. I was in the bed with him while he told me everything about his life - except, probably, the real things, because of course you couldn't go there. — Sebastian Barry

A picture story just doesn't run like a film. It doesn't have 24 frames per second. It doesn't deal with this illusion of movement. — Ben Katchor

There's something exciting about weekly strips in that you're following the way the story reveals itself to the writer week by week. All the possible directions it could have taken are there; it's a kind of participatory reading that I think books discourage. — Ben Katchor

After forty years of selling wholesale industrial deodorizing supplies, one establishment is forced to open its doors to the public.
In the lingo of the trade, a salesman explains why their large institution buyers have gone elsewhere.
Who wants to stand downwind of the League o' Nations every time some freshman with a bladder infection pulls a Nebuchadnezzar? — Ben Katchor

To choose and be so adamant about this exact location just a block or two away from 9/11, again is that knife, it feels like. — Sarah Palin

I've wasted the last five years of my life dealing in religious articles. People today find spiritual solace in ballroom dancing. — Ben Katchor