Today is the first day of the rest of your short, brutish existence as a sentient creature before being snuffed out into utter nothingness for all eternity.

I don't have to be careful, I've got a gun.

'The Simpsons' from the very beginning was based on our memories of brash '60s sitcoms - you had a main title theme that was bombastic and grabbed your attention - and when you look at TV shows of the 1970s and '80s, things got very mild and toned down and... obsequious.

I'm not going to stop torturing myself till I figure out the cause of my pain.

I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals flaming.

I went through a phase where people would introduce me at parties as a cartoonist, and everybody felt sorry for me. 'Oh, Matt's a cartoonist.' Then people further feeling sorry for me would ask me to draw Garfield. Because I'm a cartoonist, draw Snoopy or Garfield or something.

I've loved science fiction ever since I was a little kid, mainly from looking at the covers of science-fiction magazines and books, and I've read quite extensively as an adult.