Jonathan Shapiro quotes:

We do, and there is a law in the United States - the Torture Convention - that prohibits the United States from deporting an individual to a country where there is a reasonable expectation that he will be subjected to torture - physical, mental or otherwise.

There are certain people within the new government who have a slightly disturbing tendency toward authoritarianism, but there are so many checks and balances that in that way their noises are just noises.

It's to be a person who's able to shoot little arrows into sacred cows and knock politicians off their pedestals, to look out for hypocrisy, advocate for all sorts of things from social justice to peace.

I try not to change my political point of view from paper to paper.

I normally keep a series of draft in a catalogue type of book in which I scribble, sketch and draw ideas.

Certainly in cartooning I'm given huge free rein at the moment.

Primarily I'm a social commentator rather than someone who's out to get the belly laugh.

You can't undo a deportation.

There was a teacher who recognized that I was interested in cartooning and he was great.

What's much harder is taking on people in your own community.

I would think a sense of the absurd is more important for a political cartoonist, because that could define things like a sense of hypocrisy or a sense of the things one has to be skeptical about.

I was very lucky all three newspapers approached me and asked me to draw their cartoons for them.

I think the eyes are very revealing and can expose a lot about a persons mood or character.

I eventually saw the satirical nature of caricaturing individuals.

I see the cartoonist as contributing to the content, being critical, because we do poke holes in some of the dialogue and find new ways of seeing things.