A book sometimes seems to impose a through-line to life that real life doesn't actually have.

Even the disappointing diffusion of a sheer curtain can suggest the most colorful bouquet of unspeakable secrets.

My mother was always encouraging about my wanting to be an artist.

I don't think there's any independent cartoonist whose stuff I don't like or respect in at least some way or another. We're all marginal laborers - we're practically medical oddities - so I don't see why we can't all be nice to each other.

I guess we all make choices as to how we want to live, right?

A comic is a way of literally experiencing someone else's vision with a purity that I don't think any other medium offers; there are no technical, electronic or financial limitations; one only has to work harder to improve. Lately I think a new attitude has prevailed that comics aren't inherently an Art form, but that some cartoonists are genuinely artists.

I was used to being disliked as a kid. Not that I didn't deserve it: I was a pretty sad and unappealing creature, and still am, I guess. It's sort of simplistic to think that one tries to make stuff that accounts for one's repulsiveness as a person, but there's some truth to it. So, when I read something unfavorable, I always take it deeply personally. It's as if my efforts have been in vain, and I should just quit.