Top 66 Stephan Pastis Quotes
#1. I put Post-It notes everywhere to remind me of everything. I stick a ton of them on my computer monitor, telephone, and wallet. The problem now is that there are so many of them that my mind has blocked them all out. So I now need Post-It notes to remind me to look at my Post-It notes.
Stephan Pastis
#2. I don't like drawing characters facing right. If I tried to do that at a book signing, I'd have to pencil it first.
Stephan Pastis
#3. I know that if I am to move forward like the professional that I am, I must first see the past with mature eyes. And that means acknowledging that others have caused all my problems and blaming them for it.
Stephan Pastis
#4. Humility is what you strive for when you've failed at everything else.
Stephan Pastis
#5. I'm very harsh on real estate agents. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because of how the call every small house 'charming' and every run-down house a 'great fixer-upper'. Just once, I'd like them to show me a house and declare, 'This one's a piece of crap'.
Stephan Pastis
#6. If a restaurant offers crayons, I always take them and color throughout the meal. It beats talking to the people I came to dinner with.
Stephan Pastis
#7. I want a career writing these novels that I can be proud of. And then I want one as a screenwriter.
Stephan Pastis
#8. Perhaps it is a secret yearning of all Hallmark employees to use the phrase 'you big fat pain in the butt' in an anniversary card.
Stephan Pastis
#9. I guess that compared to other comic strips, I'm edgy. But put me along something like 'South Park,' and I'm 'Captain Kangaroo.'
Stephan Pastis
#10. Gary Larson: The funniest cartoonist I've ever seen. His two-volume set (The Complete Far Side) should be the textbook in any course taught on how to be funny on the comics page.
Stephan Pastis
#12. If you put me in 'South Park,' that audience is going to fall asleep in five minutes.
Stephan Pastis
#13. When I say 'friends,' I use that term loosely, as I don't actually have any.
Stephan Pastis
#14. I was a lawyer for 10 years, and when you're in law, things really have to get done, or somebody sues you. It's a great trick.
Stephan Pastis
#15. If you're from a certain generation, you basically learn to read with 'Peanuts.' It's sort of the template for the modern strip. Its influence ceased to be noticed because it's in everything.
Stephan Pastis
#16. I never feel burdened or overwhelmed by my work. People tell you to find something you love for a career, and I have. That makes me feel very lucky.
Stephan Pastis
#17. Brits have a better sense of humor in most ways. It's darker, more cutting.
Stephan Pastis
#19. Basically, I learned to read by reading 'Peanuts,' just wanting to know what they were saying.
Stephan Pastis
#20. You act like a team player,you be nice to everyone for your entire life,then you die.
Stephan Pastis
#21. I like characters who have blind spots and are full of themselves, but there also needs to be vulnerability.
Stephan Pastis
#22. I know I can always draw, but I actually love the writing the most.
Stephan Pastis
#23. It seems so absurd to get really mad with a cartoonist over a comic strip. It's sort of like getting in a fight with a circus clown outside your house. It's not going to end well.
Stephan Pastis
#24. I don't pay that much attention to sales figures or awards. To me, the big question is: 'Did you influence the next generation?' That's my goal.
Stephan Pastis
#25. Most poetry just confounds me. I really want to like it, but I can't help thinking it's a hoax. (p. 24)
Stephan Pastis
#27. Repeats are the worst, and 'Peanuts' was the one that started that. They don't rerun the news, do they? They don't repeat any other part of the paper. Why do they do it in the comics?
Stephan Pastis
#28. The phrase 'I just turn on my monkey and it makes me feel good' sounds very dirty, but I can't explain why. It's great to try to use expressions like that on the comics page. People want to complain but they can't, because they can't figure out quite what they should be complaining about.
Stephan Pastis
#29. Having a syndicated comic strip is a great platform for ripping on expressions you hate.
Stephan Pastis
#30. The only thing I learn on a daily basis from law school is that I disliked it and the law so much that it's constantly this fire at my heels.
Stephan Pastis
#31. I think it might surprise the average person how angry people can get over the comics.
Stephan Pastis
#32. I like to make fun of Jeffy [of Family Circus] the most, because I know the grown-up Jeff Keane personally and enjoy ridiculing him.
Stephan Pastis
#33. My wife Staci made me go to a wedding last weekend ... If it weren't for her, I'd be happy.
Stephan Pastis
#34. To get syndicated as a comic strip artist is as likely as winning the lottery.
Stephan Pastis
#35. I like characters like Ignatius Reilly in 'A Confederacy of Dunces' and Ricky Gervais's character in 'The Office.' They think one thing about themselves, but the truth is as far from that as it can be. So I began to think about how to put that kind of character in a book for kids.
Stephan Pastis
#37. On the list of things I cannot draw, wedding dresses are right there next to cars.
Stephan Pastis
#38. I write for three or four hours and then hopefully I'll have something. Then I draw for the rest of the afternoon ... I literally block out Wednesday-Thursday-Friday - I more or less disappear.
Stephan Pastis
#39. You can't just count on becoming a syndicated cartoonist. I actually tried to calculate the odds once, and the best I could come up with is a 1-in-36,000 chance. And the odds of getting hit by lightning are 1 in 7,900 - which kind of shows how long those odds are.
Stephan Pastis
#40. A biscuit in the States is something you would put gravy on with dinner, and it's not sweet in the least!
Stephan Pastis
#41. Everyone cites [Charles Schulz], but it's with good reason. He taught me timing, tone, character development, practically everything.
Stephan Pastis
#42. A stand-up comedian faces the audiences and gets their immediate feedback. I hide behind the comic strip, and unless people write to me, I don't know what they think.
Stephan Pastis
#43. The wonderful thing about a book is that you have a canvas that is 300 pages wide, and it's all free space. You can make a piece of art as big as you want and whatever shape you want.
Stephan Pastis
#44. I want to shake things up like 'Bloom County' did.
Stephan Pastis
#45. When in doubt, give a character big, blown-up eyes and puffy lips.
Stephan Pastis
#46. You can write a little and can draw a little, but there's necessarily a limitation on both in a comic strip, since it appears in such a tiny space.
Stephan Pastis
#47. When you can't draw chameleons and you can't draw blenders, it's a bad idea to write strips where chameleons become blenders.
Stephan Pastis
#48. A comic strip has a rhythm and a pattern, and you got to get in and out quick. So you set up a joke, tell the joke, and done.
Stephan Pastis
#50. Repeats are the absolute soul-crushing killers of the comics page.
Stephan Pastis
#51. This is every creative person's dream - a hobby that I'm lucky enough to get paid for.
Stephan Pastis
#52. The writing is done on the computer, and the drawing is done by hand. I write, write, write, then I hit the illustration.
Stephan Pastis
#53. I seem to be able to get away with pun strips if I add a panel at the end where I somehow indicate that I know it's a bad pun.
Stephan Pastis
#54. Whenever I see people with their collars up, I'm tempted to point it out to them like you would for someone who has a food stain on their shirt or food in their teeth, as if to say, 'Your fashion sense is so offensive I'm assuming it's some sort of accident you'll want to fix.
Stephan Pastis
#55. The principles of comedy are the principles of comedy. I can hear funny.
Stephan Pastis
#56. We need more cartoonists to truly retire when they retire, and not run repeats.
Stephan Pastis
#57. When people bore me, I close my eyes and try to remember the order the Seven Dwarfs marched in. But it's not always the dwarfs I think about. Sometimes aI try to list all of the Canadian provinces.
Stephan Pastis
#58. For me, going to Minneapolis is like going to Mecca.
Stephan Pastis
#59. It's best to love your family as you would a Siberian tiger-from a distance, preferably separated by bars.
Stephan Pastis
#60. Scott Adams: From him, I learned how to write a three-panel comic. Probably the best pure writer on the comics page.
Stephan Pastis
#61. If somebody is not on the same page with me humor wise, I can't give them that.
Stephan Pastis
#62. Man, I put myself in a lot of comic strips. Something's wrong with my sense of self.
Stephan Pastis
#63. Eternal condemnation is the key to selling doorknobs.
Stephan Pastis
#64. One funny image can sometimes save an otherwise mediocre strip. At least that's what I tell myself so I don't feel quite as crappy when I've just wasted four hours drawing and coloring a Sunday strip.
Stephan Pastis
#65. I have days where the only words I say are to the person making my sandwich at the grocery store.
Stephan Pastis
#66. Sticking to my schedule, I've gotten over seven months ahead, which allowed me to write a 'Pearls Before Swine' movie script for the big screen.
Stephan Pastis
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