Gary Larson quotes:

The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression.

He has been known by many names: Lucifer, Beelzabub, Belial, the Prince of Lies, Satan, and at a party once an obnoxious drunk kept calling him "Dude."

Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.

I keep thinking someone's gonna show up and say, 'There's been a big mistake. The guy next door is supposed to be drawing the cartoon. Here's your shovel.'

A long time ago, I became aware that many of us have a tendency to lump nature into simplistic categories, such as what we consider beautiful or ugly, important or unimportant. As human a thing as that is to do, I think it often leads us to misunderstand the respective roles of life forms and their interconnectedness.

People try to look for deep meanings in my work. I want to say, 'They're just cartoons, folks. You laugh or you don't.' Gee, I sound shallow. But I don't react to current events or other stimuli. I don't read or watch TV to get ideas. My work is basically sitting down at the drawing table and getting silly.

On Career Day in high school, you don't walk around looking for the cartoon guy.

The daily calendar seemed, to me, like a kind of cartoon black hole, and you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to know that that couldn't be sustained indefinitely. That's why I pulled the plug on that one after the '02 edition. Kind of a preemptive strike.

Hot oil! We need hot oil!... Forget the water balloons!

The message is not so much that the worms will inherit the Earth, but that all things play a role in nature, even the lowly worm.

Great moments in science: Einstein discovers that time is actually money.

My future plans are hazy, and I've yet to experience how much cartooning is in my blood and therefore how much I'll miss it. But I have some other interests, especially in music, and I will probably take the opportunity to delve into those things more deeply.

By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry'...

Theme-park approach to nature. We judge plants and animals by whether they're entertaining to us. We gravitate toward animals and plants that are big, dramatic, beautiful and at eye-level.

The picture's pretty bleak, gentlemen... The world's climates are changing, the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut.

I've always considered music stores to be the graveyards of musicians.

I think one thing that's important to maintain is a sense of fear, always doubting yourself... a good dose of insecurity helps your work in some ways.

Cartooning was a good fit for me. And yet now, years later, I almost never think about it.

Charters give public school teachers the flexibility to design programs to the individual student needs. They no longer have to go to a distant bureaucracy to ask for permission. By being allowed to make their own decisions the teachers are able to create strong partnerships with parents.

Every week when my batch of weekly cartoons would go to FedEx, it felt like a small miracle. Then in a few days, it's 'Here we go again.'

The problem, Mr. Fudd, is that you've been having a sublimal effect on everyone in the factory. We're proud of our product, Mr. Fudd, and there's no company in the world that build a finer skwoo dwivuh. ... Dang! Now you got me doing it!

I just get silly inside my head and I start to think about something and in my head I start twisting it around, contorting it and envisioning it in different ways.

Things can be low on the food chain, but that doesn't mean they're lowly...

Of course, living in an all-glass house has its disadvantages...but you should see the birds smack it.

Every week when my batch of weekly cartoons would go to FedEx, it felt like a small miracle. Then in a few days, it's 'Here we go again.

I actually find a lot of parallels in jazz and cartooning.

This was more than just a cow - this was an entire career I was looking at.

I don't believe in the concept of hell, but if I did I would think of it as filled with people who were cruel to animals.

I don't know where my ideas come from. I will admit, however, that one key ingredient is caffeine. I get a couple cups of coffee into me and weird things just start to happen.

I get a couple cups of coffee into me and weird things just start to happen.

I never liked my own species.

I never liked my own species. On why so many of his comics are about animals, in an interview.

I think I'm maintaining the quality, but internally I'm paying for it.

It is a known fact that the sheep that give us steel wool have no natural enemies.

Man Swims in Shark Infested Waters, Forgets He's Shark Food.

The fuel light's on, Frank! We're all going to die! Wait, wait... Oh, my mistake - that's the intercom light.

The great thing about this jungle of ours is that anyone of you could grow up to be Lord of the apes.

The idea for any cartoon (my experience, anyway) is rarely spontaneous. Good ideas usually evolve out of pretty lame ones, and vice versa.

Thunderstick?... You actually said, 'Thunderstick?'... That, my friend is a Winchester 30.06.

Wait a minute! This is grass! We've been eating grass!

We judge plants and animals by whether they're entertaining to us. We...

What is that mountain goat doing way up here in the clouds?

You always hear a headline like this, 'Man Killed By Shark', you never hear it from the other perspective, 'Man Swims in Shark Infested Waters, Forgets He's Shark Food'.

You know those little snow globes that you shake up? I always thought my brain was sort of like that. You know, where you just give it a shake and watch what comes out and shake it again. It's like that.

You should always leave the party 10 minutes before you actually do.

If a tree falls in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it, and it hits a mime, does anyone care?