Everybody doesn't have to get every joke. People really appreciate not being condescended to.
Matt GroeningA woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments, soccer games, romances, best friends, location of friend's houses, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.
Matt GroeningIt's a funny show. The characters are surprisingly likable, given how ugly they are. We've got this huge cast of characters that we can move around. And over the last few seasons, we've explored some of the secondary characters' personal lives a bit more.
Matt GroeningLiving creatively is really important to maintain throughout your life. And living creatively doesn't mean only artistic creativity, although that's part of it. It means being yourself, not just complying with the wishes of other people.
Matt GroeningYour cable television is experiencing difficulties. Please do not panic. Resist the temptation to read or talk to loved ones. Do not attempt sexual relations, as years of TV radiation have left your genitals withered and useless.
Matt GroeningThe really great thing about having two TV shows going on at the same time is that I can go to one and say that I have to go and visit the other and then I can just go home and they don't know.
Matt GroeningAmerica's health care system is second only to Japan, Canada, Sweden, Great Britain, well ... all of Europe. But you can thank your lucky starts we don't live in Paraguay!
Matt Groening'The Simpsons' obviously is a huge success, and Fox has nothing to do with its success, with its creative success, and as a result they don't really like the show. They don't like 'The Simpsons' at Fox.
Matt GroeningA woman is like beer. They look good, they smell good, and you'd step over your own mother just to get one!
Matt GroeningWhen you're as important as I am, getting your feelings hurt by me is almost an honor.
Matt GroeningI have to say that The Simpsons comes from a huge number of great writers headed by Al Jean, the show-runner, and the work that they do is really fantastic. It's a blast just to sit around with them in the writers' room and listen to all the filthy jokes that will never get on the air.
Matt GroeningAnxiety and hostility seem to be a great part of good and bad humor. Examining humor too closely does seem to destroy it.
Matt GroeningThe Simpsons and Futurama are such big projects, going on for years and working in different media, that everything involved with them, promotion and merchandise and online presence and all the rest, deserve to be scrutinized, so that's part of it. I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone at the core of a multimedia juggernaut, even if you might not care for the specific pop-culture invasion of your brain. The people who do it work really hard.
Matt GroeningLove is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.
Matt GroeningYou can't keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once, and move on." Homer Simpson
Matt GroeningA lot of people believe that if everybody just did what they were told - obeyed - everything would be fine. But that's not what life is all about. That's not real. It's never going to happen.
Matt Groening'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.
Matt GroeningI loved literary science fiction. In fact, as a kid, when I was reading science fiction, I thought 'I can't wait for the future when the special effects are good' to represent what was in these books by Arthur C. Clarke, Alfred Bester, Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, Jack Vance.
Matt GroeningYou know, the courts may not be working any more, but as long as everyone is videotaping everyone else, justice will be done.
Matt GroeningCartooning is for people who can't quite draw and can't quite write. You combine the two half-talents and come up with a career.
Matt GroeningI know for a fact, obviously, because my kids grew up watching the show, that there are some things they are introduced to from 'The Simpsons', and then later in life they see the thing we're parodying. My kids had not seen 'Casablanca,' and we'd done parodies of 'Casablanca.'
Matt GroeningPeople go into cartooning because they're shy and they're angry. That's when you're sitting in the back of a classroom drawing the teacher.
Matt GroeningHow is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?
Matt GroeningI basically drew my own family. My father's name is Homer. My mother's name is Margaret. I have a sister Lisa and another sister Maggie, so I drew all of them. I was going to name the main character Matt, but I didn't think it would go over well in a pitch meeting, so I changed the name to Bart.
Matt GroeningBack in high school, I wrote a novel about a character named Bart Simpson. I thought it was a very unusual name for a kid at the time. I had this idea of an angry father yelling "Bart," and Bart sounds kind of like bark - like a barking dog.
Matt GroeningI think people who work in comedy and humor are hesitant to analyze it too much, because you feel like if you take it apart, you'll break it and not be able to put it back together again.
Matt GroeningThe scary thing about the future... there will be tiny cameras everywhere, and they'll be flying around like mosquitoes and drones. That will be bad. Drones are scary. You can't reason with a drone.
Matt GroeningI also found child's play - stuff that was not considered serious, but goofy - was the stuff I liked to do, so I still do it as an adult.
Matt GroeningOne of the things I would like to do is make up stories that I would have enjoyed when I was a kid. So, if I'm thinking about an audience, it's usually a younger version of myself.
Matt GroeningI'm presently incarcerated. Convicted of a crime I didn't even commit. Hah! "Attempted murder"? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry? Do they?
Matt GroeningThe conundrum that I face on a daily basis is that I have two sons who have grown up watching 'The Simpsons,' so they know exactly what buttons to push. They know how Bart irritates Homer, and they use these lines against me to tell me that I'm not funny anymore.
Matt GroeningYou've got to embrace the future. You can whine about it, but you've got to embrace it.
Matt GroeningLove is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun.
Matt Groening