58 Quotes by Jim Woodring

If I had learned how to get along in the quotidian world while keeping up the search for the hidden realm, I might have gotten more out of life. But I believed I was doing hugely important work. I was elitist about it.

I have a personal definition of cartooning, which is, simply, "imaginative drawing." Anything you're drawing that is not in front of you but is a mental construct that you want to express in a drawing is, to me, a cartoon.

The fiction I tend to like is nothing like my own work. I like the kind of writing that shows me things I don't know about, and what I don't know about is the everyday, normal world.

I've often thought I would like to try to write a conventional novel, but I just don't know enough about the real world to write one.

I could never write about the sort of people John Cheever or John Updike or even Margaret Atwood write about. I don't mean I couldn't write as well as they do, which of course I couldn't; they're great writers, and I'm no writer at all. But I couldn't even write badly about normal, neurotic people. I don't know that world from the inside. That's just not my orientation.

The books that I do, the stories I write - I'm glad I'm able to do them, but they will quickly be swallowed up by the sands of time. Sometimes it frustrates me that I'm not able to do bigger, more important, more significant things. I guess you have to be content to do whatever it is you can do.

I do sort of feel like I'm building my monument with what I do, but it's pretty small and inconsequential compared to real works of genius which are giving vast inspiration to humanity. But I guess I shouldn't even say that. It's ridiculous to say that. You are what you are. My stature suits me.

Cartoons are perhaps a bigger part of art than is generally realized, and they influence people in ways that are not always recognized. But creating a monumental work of architecture, or writing a great symphony, is something else. It's a higher order of creation.

When I was setting out to be an artist, I said: If I can just produce one work that some people think is good, if I can become an obscure cult artist, that's all I want. Well, I attained that. I'm an obscure cult artist, and I think now, Why didn't I say I want to be another Picasso or something? What other options were open to me? But I was convinced I couldn't achieve great things because I don't have a steady-state mind.