Mccracken Quotes & Sayings

Whether the color of your skin is black, white, yellow, brown or purple
the extent of this tragedy is so incredibly devastating that we had to do something. — Bert McCracken

The storyboard artists job is to plan out shot for shot the whole show, write all the dialog, and decide the mood, action, jokes, pacing, etc of every scene. — Craig McCracken

For about half an hour in mid-1992, I knew as much as any layperson about the pleasures of remote access of other people's computers. — Elizabeth McCracken

For some people, history is simply what your wife looks good standing in front of. It's what's cast in bronze, or framed in sepia tones, or acted out with wax dummies and period furniture. It takes place in glass bubbles filled with water and chunks of plastic snow; it's stamped on souvenir pencils and summarized in reprint newspapers. History nowadays is recorded in memorabilia. If you can't purchase a shopping bag that alludes to something, people won't believe it ever happened. — Elizabeth McCracken

I believe marriage is a spectator sport. — Elizabeth McCracken

I've learned so much from my professors and have been fortunate to have had so many good ones, including Frederick and Steven Barthelme, Edward Carey, Jim Magnuson, and Elizabeth McCracken. — Mary J. Miller

A Lucky Child is an extraordinary story, simply and beautifully told. Heartbreaking and thrilling, it examines what it means to be human, in every good and awful sense. Perhaps most amazingly of all, Thomas Buergenthal remembers and renders the small mysteries and grand passions of childhood, even a childhood lived under the most horrific circumstances. — Elizabeth McCracken

They
the books I mean, not the ladies of Technical Services, though maybe those ladies too
might have dreamed of a different life in a private home, beloved and displayed and well dressed and only occasionally, dreamily read, but they belonged to the city now and had to work for the common good. — Elizabeth McCracken

My father was right: you could make anybody amazing just by insisting they were. — Elizabeth McCracken

A comic strip that your parents read when they were young is a curious thing: it's an heirloom, and it's also intimate. You peer through windows and look at the things that made your elders laugh, and then you wonder whether the laugh really belongs to you. — Elizabeth McCracken

When the time comes to face McCracken, I don't want you anywhere near."

"I agree with Milligan!" Sticky whispered.

Milligan winked at him and quickly ushered the children back to the double doors. — Trenton Lee Stewart

I used to be a writer with superstitions worthy of a professional baseball player: I needed a certain desk chair and a certain armchair and a certain desk arrangement, and I could only get really useful work done between 8 P.M. and 3 A.M. Then I started to move, and I couldn't bring my chairs with me. — Elizabeth McCracken

I didn't know what it was I was feeling. Then I realized it was seeing someone and knowing immediately that you love him. — Elizabeth McCracken

I work in my office on the campus of the University of Texas. It's the sort of place described as 'book-lined', but it's recently tipped over into 'fire-hazard' territory. — Elizabeth McCracken

I've always been absolutely appalling about the future, but I sort of think that was my childhood religion. We were future deniers. You did your best in the present, which was all around you. — Elizabeth McCracken

It's an amazing thing to watch a lizard fold a moth into its mouth, like a sword swallower who specialises in umbrellas. — Elizabeth McCracken

For a long time I wanted to be a comic strip artist but when I started doing them in my teens they were getting really elaborate with tons of poses and a lot of information. — Craig McCracken

I rebelled against the Mormon Church by going to other churches. I rebelled against my parents by not eating meat. I rebelled against my friends and myself by doing drugs. And I rebelled against everything that was holding me down by playing music with these guys. — Bert McCracken

I've rebelled against all types of conformity throughout my life, not just Utah's conservative culture — Bert McCracken

Patty Flood and her good mood were starting to get on my nerves. Her mood was so good it was almost a physical thing, a monkey on a leash that she let leap all over the furniture, delighting only its owner. — Elizabeth McCracken

I have children, and this notion - that there might be a single book that introduces children to literature - terrifies me. But you could do worse than Mary Norton's 'The Borrowers.' I loved it as a kid, and my kids love it, too. — Elizabeth McCracken

The finger-biter's feelings for her ex-husband were a bonsai tree - they may have started in something real, but she'd tended them so closely and for so long they were now purely decorative. — Elizabeth McCracken

There are two MFA programs here at the University of Texas, and I read on the jury of both of them. And it's amazing to me how many really talented young writers seem to fear humor. — Elizabeth McCracken

No one has asked me a question yet, but I will not shut up. — Elizabeth McCracken

I own an e-reader, but I use it almost exclusively to read things that aren't books - student theses, unbound galleys. — Elizabeth McCracken

It's hard to know which made me more aware of the impossibility of protecting children - having a child die or having had two live. — Elizabeth McCracken

As for me, I believe that if there's a God - and I am as neutral on the subject as is possible - then the most basic proof of His existence is black humor. What else explains it, that odd, reliable comfort that billows up at the worst moments, like a beautiful sunset woven out of the smoke over a bombed city. — Elizabeth McCracken

I'm astounded by people who can listen to music when they write. I can only assume that they have multi-track brains, while mine is decidedly single. — Elizabeth McCracken

Other people's happiness is always a fascinating bore. It sucks the oxygen out of the room; you're left gasping, greedy, amazed by a deficit in yourself you hadn't ever noticed. — Elizabeth McCracken

In 'Property,' none of the characters are based on any real people, but the house is very much the house that I moved into in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. — Elizabeth McCracken

Like all good mothers, she always knew the worst was going to happen and was disappointed and relieved when it finally did. — Elizabeth McCracken

But a library is a gorgeous language that you will never speak fluently. — Elizabeth McCracken

We are raising a generation that has a woefully small stock of ideas and interests and emotions. It must be amused at all costs but it has little skill in amusing itself. It pays some of its members to do what the majority can no longer do for themselves. It is this inner poverty that makes for the worst kind of boredom. — Robert McCracken

I sort of don't believe in closure. In the sense that it doesn't make me feel better to think that something is over. — Elizabeth McCracken

God doesn't look down and see good people and bad people; he sees bad people and the Lord Jesus. — Brett McCracken

I started working at Hanna-Barbera in '92 on 2 Stupid Dogs. — Craig McCracken

Acknowledgment of grief - well, it makes feeling the grief easier, not harder. — Elizabeth McCracken

When people hear our record, they're not going to be able to put us into the 'New Metal' category or the 'pop-punk' category or the 'aggressive emo' category. I think people will be able to take it for what it is. — Bert McCracken

Perhaps it goes without saying that I believe in the geographic cure. Of course you can't out-travel sadness. You will find it has smuggled itself along in your suitcase. It coats the camera lens, it flavors the local cuisine. In that different sunlight, it stands out, awkward, yours, honking in the brash vowels of your native tongue in otherwise quiet restaurants. You may even feel proud of its stubbornness as it follows you up the bell towers and monuments, as it pants in your ear while you take in the view. I travel not to get away from my troubles but to see how they look in front of famous buildings or on deserted beaches. I take them for walks. Sometimes I get them drunk. Back at home we generally understand each other better. — Elizabeth McCracken

Life likes jokes; life is constantly making jokes, even at the most inopportune moments. — Elizabeth McCracken

Well, for one thing, the executives in charge at Cartoon Network are cartoon fans. I mean, these are people who grew up loving animation and loving cartoons, and the only difference between them and me is they don't know how to draw. — Craig McCracken

When it comes to other people's writing, my older influences are more powerful than more recent ones, partially because I'm now more worried that I'll suddenly accidentally steal something from another writer. — Elizabeth McCracken

But you can't spend your whole life hoping people will ask you the right questions. you must learn to love and answer the questions they already ask. — Elizabeth McCracken

Gilda: How severe is the corporal punishment here?
Mrs. McCracken: Honey, nobody's going to spank you here. Don't worry. — Jennifer Allison

There's a good chance that in 40 years, after the floods, people zipping by on scavenged jetpacks with their scavenged baseball caps on backwards, I will be in my rocking chair saying bitterly, 'I remember when 'all right' was two words.' — Elizabeth McCracken

The consensus seems to be this: we should be deeply Christian artists. But that doesn't mean we should be something called Christian artists or that whatever we produce should be called Christian art. We should simply focus on our craft, on making the best art we can. We should understand that people will and should resonate with our work not because it is Christian but because it is good. Above all, Christians should make good art, true art; art unafraid of exploring mystery, portraying evil, and looking for truth wherever it appears. — Brett McCracken

All she really wanted was to go to her apartment, to her bedroom, to the back of her walk-in closet, to sit among the shoes. — Elizabeth McCracken

One of the main things I do is focus on ideas and what stories we decide to tell, but probably the biggest part of my job I'd say is working on the storyboards. — Craig McCracken

Ordinarily, I'd claim that I'd never write directly about my children, but the opening conversation of 'Peter Elroy' is a verbatim conversation that my children had that I just loved: morbid, funny, passionate, and obsessed with the truth of things - all natural qualities of children that I'd like my work to contain. — Elizabeth McCracken

In library science school, back in the years of glowing green non-graphical screens and protocols called Archie and Veronica, I wrote Internet documentation. — Elizabeth McCracken

Sometimes kissing is better than sex. Especially kissing someone for the first time — Bert McCracken

We have this day to be alive. We better lay down and give up, or stand up and really make some worthwhile memories for ourselves. 'Cause we're not going to be alive forever — Bert McCracken

Michael looked embarrassed. "No, I don't really ... I mean in real life, I don't do that. I read BDSM once in a while, but honestly, I prefer the sweeter romances."
"Sure. I believe you. Bondage Ben."
"Stop it." Michael laughed.
"Cracky McCracken." James flicked an invisible whip.
"I am not! I'm more like Nick Normal."
"Nipple Clamp Ned."
"Vince Vanilla."
James gave him a dubious look and snorted. "I doubt that very much."
Michael shrugged with an evil little smile. "Well, maybe not entirely vanilla. — Eli Easton

People think they're interesting. That's their first mistake. — Elizabeth McCracken

The Sermon on the Mount does not provide humanity with a complete guide to personal, social and economic problems. It sets forth spiritual attitudes, moral principles of universal validity, such as " Love your enemies," "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," and it leaves to Christians the task-the admittedly difficult task-of applying them in any given situation. — Robert McCracken

An iron lung looks like an enormous metal coffin or a 19th-century rocket ship: only its occupant's head is left outside, a tight seal around the neck. — Elizabeth McCracken

The biggest thing I've learned is that you only have one chance. You only have today to live-but you gotta take it and make it the best you can — Bert McCracken

I wanted to acknowledge that life goes on but that death goes on, too. A person who is dead is a long, long story. — Elizabeth McCracken

This is why you need everyone you know after a disaster, because there is not one right response. It's what paralyzes people around the grief-stricken, of course, the idea that there are right things to say and wrong things and it's better to say nothing than something clumsy. — Elizabeth McCracken

The thing that most interests me about writing - there are lots of things, but the thing I can't do without - is the hit of happiness a lovely sentence delivers. — Elizabeth McCracken

You believe in God or statistics or the way your narrative differs from other people. — Elizabeth McCracken

My memories are not books. They are only stories that I have been over so many times in my head that I don't know from one day to the next what's remembered and what's made up. Like when you memorize a poem, and for one small unimportant part you supply your own words. The meaning's the same, the meter's identical. When you read the actual version you can never get it into your head that it's right and you're wrong. — Elizabeth McCracken

When I was in college, I wrote poetry very seriously, and then once I had started writing short stories, I didn't go back to poetry, partially because I felt like I understood how incredibly difficult it was. — Elizabeth McCracken

I'm hoping that word-of-mouth on the film - people seeing it and liking it - that that will drive more people to the theaters, because I haven't seen the billboards or the posters or anything. — Craig McCracken

Short fiction is like low relief. And if your story has no humor in it, then you're trying to look at something in the pitch dark. With the light of humor, it throws what you're writing into relief so that you can actually see it. — Elizabeth McCracken

I like seeing my physical progress through a volume, particularly if it's a big book. — Elizabeth McCracken

When I first met my husband, he was sculpting Vilnius out of clay - a sort of Vilnius, anyhow: a map of an imaginary European city based on the Lithuanian capital - to illustrate his second novel. — Elizabeth McCracken

I mean, you can't have sex until you're married if you're Mormon. The first time I had sex, my parents found out. They were listening in on the phone while I was talking about sex to my girlfriend. They freaked out, man. They both cornered me in my bedroom. — Bert McCracken

People who escape familiar groups and make contact with unfamiliar ones becomes smarter and more creative. They have what Ronald Burt calls a "vision advantage." They are no longer captives of their cultures. — Grant McCracken

I just kind of thought about doing this my whole life. I never doubted myself once. I've always been singing, and I've always wanted to be on tour with a rock band. — Bert McCracken

And while I was not an admirer of people in the specific, I liked them in the abstract. It is only the execution of the idea that disappoints. — Elizabeth McCracken

We are the outcasts, we are the ones that are different, we are the ones that never got along with anyone else, we are the ones that went back to our rooms and put on our headphones and listened to those records that made us happy — Bert McCracken

We chose the actors thru a series of auditions when we started the show. — Craig McCracken

The cure for unhappiness is happiness,
I don't care what anyone says. — Elizabeth McCracken

Librarian like Stewardess, Certified Public Accountant, Used Car Salesman is one of those occupations that people assume attract a certain deformed personality. — Elizabeth McCracken

To venture into space we must be strong-willed and determined. We must be fully committed to its exploration and discovery; space permits no half measures and is unforgiving of mistakes. — Henry Joy McCracken

You can't out-travel sadness. I travel not to get away from my troubles but to see how they look in front of famous buildings — Elizabeth McCracken

When my body gets so overexerted with energy, I just keep going and going. — Bert McCracken

I feel like I don't understand time in novels, really. I bumble forward, is all. — Elizabeth McCracken

Don't run away from your troubles, because they'll sure as hell run faster. — Elizabeth McCracken

Basicly I'm in charge of all creative aspects of the show. — Craig McCracken

Remember that a woman who has given birth to a dead child has given birth and is recovering physically, too. Don't be afraid of grieving parents. — Elizabeth McCracken

We definitely didn't want it to be anything like our first or second records. We wanted to experiment more than we ever had and take any new idea and run with it as far as we could. — Bert McCracken

Can I tell you something? It wasn't so bad. Not so bad at all right then, me scowling at the dirt, James in his bed, the way it always always was. Look, if that's all that happened, if his dying just meant that I would be waiting for him to say something instead of listening to him say something, it would have been fine. — Elizabeth McCracken

Books remember all the things you cannot contain. — Elizabeth McCracken

Truthfully, this is the fabric of all my fantasies: love shown not by a kiss or a wild look or a careful hand but by a willingness for research. i don't dream of someone who understands me immediately, who seems to have known me my entire life, who says, i know me too. i want someone keen to learn my own strange organization, amazed at what's revealed; someone who asks, and then what, and then what? — Elizabeth McCracken

God is great. God is faithful. And His love is set upon us.
We come as we are, with trembling trust. — Sandra McCracken

Anything you see on the screen was at one point approved by me. — Craig McCracken

You write the way you think about the world. My motto in times of trouble - and I'm speaking of life, not writing - is 'no humor too black.' — Elizabeth McCracken

The shows are either 11 or 22 minutes and they move pretty quickly, and that's part of the charm of them - so it was just trying to keep that in mind and keep the energy of the story moving, even though we were dealing with a longer format. — Craig McCracken

First, there was 2 Stupid Dogs. Then, Dexter's Laboratory. And now, Powerpuff Girls. There were a lot of little things in between, but those were the main ones. — Craig McCracken

I had loved Portland. It was a clean city, with weather so delicate that at night you had to look at the streetlights to tell whether it was raining or snowing. Everything was heavier near Boston: air, accents, women. — Elizabeth McCracken

I got that familiar mania - there is information somewhere here, and I can find it, I have to. A good librarian is not so different from a prospector, her whole brain a divining rod. She walks to books and stands and wonders: here? Is the answer here? The same blind faith in finding, even when hopeless. If someone caught me when I was in the throes of tracking something elusive, I would have told them: but it's out there. I can feel it. — Elizabeth McCracken

Though my love for you is infinitesimal, your eyes are as dewey as any old decimal. — Elizabeth McCracken

Aunt Helen Beck had many intentions about her death. She was about being dead the way some people are about being British - she wasn't, and it seemed she would never be, but it was clearly something she aspired to, since all the people she respected were. — Elizabeth McCracken

I come from food the way some people come from money. Food was the medium I grew up in, what we talked about, what shaped our days. — Elizabeth McCracken

Fire is a speed reader, which is why the ignorant burn books: fire races through pages, takes care of all the knowledge, and never bores you with a summary. — Elizabeth McCracken

Whatever you have lost there are more of, just not yours. — Elizabeth McCracken

In reference works, as in sin, omission is as bad as willful misbehavior. — Elizabeth McCracken

Yes, it's a prequel. It tells the story about how the girls were born with superpowers, but they weren't necessarily heroes at the beginning of this movie, so the movie is about the events that happen in their life to make them decide to be heroes. — Craig McCracken