Alternative cartoonists have to rely on comic book stores to get their stuff in the hands of readers.

I do sort of feel like I'm building my monument with what I do, but it's pretty small and inconsequential compared to real works of genius like this, which are giving vast inspiration to humanity. But I guess I shouldn't even say that. It's ridiculous to say that. You are what you are. My stature suits me.

I could never write about the sort of people John Cheever or John Updike or even Margaret Atwood write about. I don't mean I couldn't write as well as they do, which of course I couldn't; they're great writers, and I'm no writer at all. But I couldn't even write badly about normal, neurotic people. I don't know that world from the inside. That's just not my orientation.

If I had learned how to get along in the quotidian world while keeping up the search for the hidden realm, I might have gotten more out of life. But I believed I was doing hugely important work. I was elitist about it.

One of the best memories of my life is contemplating that first finished drawing and realizing I had cracked the code, that I could make drawings like this whenever I wanted.

To my way of thinking, the concept drawings that Rembrandt did, the drawings he made that he used to model his artists, to work out the compositions of his paintings: those are cartoons. Look at his sketch for the return of the prodigal son. The expression on the angry younger brother's face. The head is down; the eyebrow is just one curved line over the eyes. It communicates in a very shorthand way. It's beautiful, expressive, and, in a peculiar way, it's more powerful than the kind of stilted, formalized expression in the final painting.

A tree is an incomprehensibl e mystery.