Cartoonist was the weirdest name I finally let myself have. I would never say it. When I heard it I silently thought, what an awful word.
Lynda Barry

Going on Letterman is like going off the high dive. It's exhilarating, but after a while it wasn't the kind of thrill I enjoyed.
Lynda Barry

Humor is such a wonderful thing, helping you realize what a fool you are but how beautiful that is at the same time.
Lynda Barry

I am not sure how much I would like being married if I wasn't married to him. A man who likes flea markets and isn't gay? I knew I was lucky.
Lynda Barry

I do dumb stuff, like playing my favorite dumb Barry White song and lip-synching into the mirror so it looks like his voice is coming out of my mouth.
Lynda Barry

I go to work the minute I open my eyes.
Lynda Barry

I listen like mad to any conversation taking place next to me just trying to hear why this is funny. Women's restrooms are especially great. I wash my hands twice waiting for people to come in and start talking.
Lynda Barry

I need to be cheered up a lot. I think funny people are people who need to be cheered up.
Lynda Barry

I started doing cartoons when I was about 21. I never thought I would be a cartoonist. It happened behind my back. I was always a painter and drawer.
Lynda Barry

I used to live a very social life and never spend much solitary time looking at birds or reading.
Lynda Barry


I was unable to sleep and I would stay up and draw these little cartoons. Then a friend showed them around. Before I knew it I was a cartoonist.
Lynda Barry

I wasn't afraid to be laughed at or be loud.
Lynda Barry

I've gotten a lot of livid letters about the awfulness of my work. I've never known what to make of it. Why do people bother to write if they hate what I do?
Lynda Barry

If I didn't try to eavesdrop on every bus ride I take or look for the humor when I go for a walk, I would just be depressed all the time.
Lynda Barry

If I had had me for a student I would have thrown me out of class immediately.
Lynda Barry

If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile.
Lynda Barry

In life there are always these things happening if you can just get the joke.
Lynda Barry

Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.
Lynda Barry

Love will make a way out of no way.
Lynda Barry

People think that whatever I put into strips has happened to me in my life.
Lynda Barry