“
The world isn't fair, Calvin."
"I know Dad, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favor?
”
”
Bill Watterson (The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury)
“
I like physics, but I love cartoons.
”
”
Stephen Hawking
“
If your opponent has you by fifty pounds, winning a fight against him is a dubious proposition, at best. If your opponent has you by eight thousand and fifty pounds, you’ve left the realm of combat and enrolled yourself in Road-kill 101. Or possibly in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Small Favor (The Dresden Files, #10))
“
I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.
”
”
Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian)
“
I draw because words are too unpredictable.
I draw because words are too limited.
If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning.
But when you draw a picture everybody can understand it.
If I draw a cartoon of a flower, then every man, woman, and child in the world can look at it and say, "That's a flower.
”
”
Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian)
“
Holy shit, did they just kill off that fish’s wife?” I blurted in shock.
“Yep,” Gavin replied. “That big, mean fish ated her.”
He said it so calmly – like it was no big deal that a sweet, loving cartoon fish just got murdered. What the fuck was wrong with this movie? This couldn’t be appropriate for kids. I didn’t think it was appropriate for me.
”
”
Tara Sivec (Seduction and Snacks (Chocolate Lovers, #1))
“
Remember: It costs nothing to encourage an artist, and the potential benefits are staggering. A pat on the back to an artist now could one day result in your favorite film, or the cartoon you love to get stoned watching, or the song that saves your life. Discourage an artist, you get absolutely nothing in return, ever.
”
”
Kevin Smith (Tough Shit: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good)
“
I let out a laugh that sounded more like the yip of a startled poodle. "Superp-powers? I wish. My powers aren't winning me a slot on the Cartoon Network anytime soon... except as a comic relief. Ghost Whisperer Junior. Or Ghost Screamer, more like it. Tune in, every week, as Chloe Saunders runs screaming from yet another ghost looking for her help."
Okay, superpower might be pushing it.
”
”
Kelley Armstrong (The Summoning (Darkest Powers, #1))
“
Welcome to Hell. Here's your accordion.
”
”
Gary Larson (The Complete Far Side, 1980–1994)
“
To be born means being compelled to choose an era, a place, a life. To exist here, now, means to lost the possibility of being countless other potential selves.. Yet once being born there is no turning back. And I think that's exactly why the fantasy worlds of cartoon movies so strongly represent our hopes and yearnings. They illustrate a world of lost possibilities for us.
”
”
Hayao Miyazaki (Starting Point 1979-1996)
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Tangled is not a cartoon. Tangled is one of the greatest movies of all time. It's about fighting for freedom and true love.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Defy Me (Shatter Me, #5))
“
I BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW THIS, but lots of guys have a thing for Ariel. You know, from The Little Mermaid? I’ve never been into her myself, but I can understand the attraction: she fills out her shells nicely, she’s a redhead, and she spends most of the movie unable to speak.
In light of this, I’m not too disturbed about the semi I’m sporting while watching Beauty and the Beast—part of the homework Erin gave me. I like Belle. She’s hot. Well…for a cartoon, anyway. She reminds me of Kate. She’s resourceful. Smart. And she doesn’t take any shit from the Beast or that douchebag with the freakishly large arms.
I stare at the television as Belle bends over to feed a bird. Then I lean forward, hoping for a nice cleavage shot…
I’m going to hell, aren’t I?
”
”
Emma Chase (Tangled (Tangled, #1))
“
They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressure; there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles)
“
Have you ever heard of Blue Streak?"
I blink at him. "That's the name of a movie?"
"Romeo Must Die? Bad Boys? Rush Hour? Rush Hour 2? Rush Hour 3? Actually, Rush Hour 3 wasn't that great. Tangled?
"That last one, I believe, is a cartoon about a girl with very long hair, inspired by the German fairy tale Rapunzel."
Kenji looks like he might be choking. "A cartoon?" he says, outraged. "Tangled is not a cartoon. Tangled is one of the greatest movies of all time. It's about fighting for freedom and true love.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Defy Me (Shatter Me, #5))
“
If you’ve ever studied mortal age cartoons, you’ll remember this one. A coyote was always plotting the demise of a smirking long-necked bird. The coyote never succeeded; instead, his plans always backfired. He would blow up, or get shot, or splat from a ridiculous height.
And it was funny.
Because no matter how deadly his failure, he was always back in the next scene, as if there were a revival center just beyond the edge of the animation cell.
I’ve seen human foibles that have resulted in temporary maiming or momentary loss of life. People stumble into manholes, are hit by falling objects, trip into the paths of speeding vehicles.
And when it happens, people laugh, because no matter how gruesome the event, that person, just like the coyote, will be back in a day or two, as good as new, and no worse—or wiser—for the wear.
Immortality has turned us all into cartoons.
”
”
Neal Shusterman (Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1))
“
Another guy barked orders to a small army of brooms, mops, and buckets that were scuttling around, cleaning up the city.
"Like that cartoon," Sadie said. "Where Mickey Mouse tries to do magic and the brooms keep splitting and toting water."
"'The Sorcerer's Apprentice,'" Zia said. "You do know that was based on an Egyptian story, don't you?
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, #1))
“
Tayla cursed under her breath. "I was just explaining to Eidolon that Sin is a Smurfette."
Wraith swung his big body around to study Sin with blue eyes that were very different from Shade's, E's. and Lore's. Sin's, too. "Nah. Smurfette is way hotter."
"What the fuck is a Smurfette?" Eidolon was seriously getting annoyed now.
"There's this cartoon called The Smurfs," Tayla explained, slowly, as though Eidolon were the child here.
"They're these little blue people, and they're all male. But one day a female shows up. She shouldn't exist, but she does."
Eidolon considered that for a second. "How did she get there?"
"An evil wizard named Gargamel made her," Tayla said. "In a lab or something."
"So you're suggesting that an evil wizard made Sin?"
"Of course not, silly. I'm just saying she's a Smurfette. A lone female amongst males."
Eidolon frowned. "Did the Smurfette mate with the males?"
"Dude." Wraith grimaced. "It's a cartoon.
”
”
Larissa Ione (Ecstasy Unveiled (Demonica, #4))
“
He dropped the rest of the Cokes into the grave and pulled out a white
paper bag decorated with cartoons. I hadn’t seen one in years, but I
recognized it — a McDonald’s Happy Meal.
He turned it upside down and shook the fries and hamburger into the grave.
“In my day, we used animal blood,” the ghost mumbled. “It’s perfectly good enough. They can’t taste the difference.”
“I will treat them with respect,” Nico said.
“At least let me keep the toy,” the ghost said.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #4))
“
Hadley grabs the laminated safety instructions from the seat pocket in front of her and frowns at the cartoon men and women who seem weirdly delighted to be bailing out of a series of cartoon planes. Beside her, Oliver stifles a laugh, and she glances up again.
“What?”
“I’ve just never seen anyone actually read one of those things before,”
“Well,” she says, “then you’re very lucky to be sitting next to me.”
“Just in general?”
She grins. “Well, particularly in case of an emergency.”
“Right,” he says. “I feel incredibly safe. When I’m knocked unconscious by my tray table during some sort of emergency landing, I can’t wait to see all five-foot-nothing of you carry me out of here.
”
”
Jennifer E. Smith (The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight)
“
All right. Tell me what I'm looking at."
From the improvised Rolling Stones T-shirt bag tied to my sash, Bob the Skull said, in his most caustic voice, "A giant pair of cartoon lips."
I muttered a curse and fumbled with the shirt until one of the skull's glowing orange eye sockets was visible.
A big goofy magic nerd!" Bob said.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Changes (The Dresden Files, #12))
“
My God, that scene in Monster Inc. where the monsters realise that their entire world is founded on hurting children -look at that for a change! Two galumphing cartoon characters making a shattering realisation about their world and their role in sustaining it. A truly epic moment. It's stunning.
”
”
Russell T. Davies (Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale)
“
[on the future of hand-drawn animation] I'm actually not that worried. I wouldn't give up on it completely. Once in a while there are strange, rich people who like to invest in odd things. You're going to have people in the corners of garages making cartoons to please themselves. And I'm more interested in those people than I am in big business.
”
”
Hayao Miyazaki
“
I see it for what is is, now. It is a house built on ashes. Ashes of the life Granddad shared with Gran, ashes of the maple from which the tire swing flew, ashes of the old Victorian house with the porch and the hammock. The new house is built on the grave of all the trophies and symbols of the family: the New Yorker cartoons, the taxidermy, the embroidered pillows, the family portraits.
”
”
E. Lockhart (We Were Liars)
“
And didn't it always go like that--body parts not lining up the way you wanted them to, all of it a little bit off, as if the world itself were an animated sequence of longing and envy and self-hatred and grandiosity and failure and success, a strange and endless cartoon loop that you couldn't stop watching, because, despite all you knew by now, it was still so interesting.
”
”
Meg Wolitzer (The Interestings)
“
You read a book for the story, for each of its words," Gordy said, "and you draw your cartoons for the story, for each of the words and images. And, yeah, you need to take that seriously, but you should also read and draw because really good books and cartoons give you a boner."
I was shocked:
"Did you just say books should give me a boner?"
"Yes, I did."
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah... don't you get excited about books?"
"I don't think that you're supposed to get THAT excited about books."
"You should get a boner! You have to get a boner!" Gordy shouted. "Come on!"
We ran into the Reardan High School Library.
"Look at all these books," he said.
"There aren't that many," I said. It was a small library in a small high school in a small town.
"There are three thousand four hundred and twelve books here," Gordy said. "I know that because I counted them."
"Okay, now you're officially a freak," I said.
"Yes, it's a small library. It's a tiny one. But if you read one of these books a day, it would still take you almost ten years to finish."
"What's your point?"
"The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don't know."
Wow. That was a huge idea.
Any town, even one as small as Reardan, was a place of mystery. And that meant Wellpinit, the smaller, Indian town, was also a place of mystery.
"Okay, so it's like each of these books is a mystery. Every book is a mystery. And if you read all of the books ever written, it's like you've read one giant mystery. And no matter how much you learn, you keep on learning so much more you need to learn."
"Yes, yes, yes, yes," Gordy said. "Now doesn't that give you a boner?"
"I am rock hard," I said.
”
”
Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian)
“
Tayla stole a peek at the report. "What's fucked up? The Smurfette?"
"The what?"
"Smurfette." Tayla rolled her eyes. "You've never watched cartoons, have you?"
Wraith came around the corner, his leather duster flapping around his boots. He shot Tay a look drenched with sympathy. "E's way too starched to watch cartoons. That's so not happening to Stewie. He's already digging The Simpsons."
"He's three weeks old!" Tayla gaped at Wraith in outrage.
"Almost four."
Tayla huffed. "Good God. I can't believe you are raising a child. Isn't there some sort of demon equivalent of Child Protective Services ?"
"Hey. I have as much right to screw up a kid as anyone else.
”
”
Larissa Ione
“
You’re not . . . normal, Clara. You try to pretend you are. But you’re not. You talked to a grizzly bear, and it obeyed you. Birds follow you like a Disney cartoon, or haven’t you noticed? And for a while after you came back from Idaho Falls, Wendy thought you were on the run from someone or something. You’re good at everything you try. You ride a horse like you were born in the saddle, you ski perfect parallel turns your first time on the hill, you apparently speak fluent French and Korean and who knows what else. Yesterday I noticed that your eyebrows kind of glitter in the sun. And there’s something about the way you move, something that’s beyond graceful, something that’s beyond human, even. It’s like you’re . . . something else.
”
”
Cynthia Hand (Unearthly (Unearthly, #1))
“
What with your phone and the Xbox and the taxi TV and that music player you wear on your arm and the headphones that look like donuts on your ears, doesn’t it make life so much smaller? If absolutely everything important is only happening on such a small screen, isn’t that a shame? Especially when the world is so overwhelmingly large and surprising? Are you missing too much? You can’t imagine it now, but you’ll look like me one day, even though you’ll feel just the same as you do now. You’ll catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and think how quickly it’s all gone, and I wonder if all the time you used watching those families whose lives are filmed for the television, and making those cartoons of yourselves with panting dog tongues, and chasing after that terrible Pokémon fellow…well, will it feel like time well spent?
”
”
Lauren Graham (Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between)
“
Thanks to my mother, I was raised to have a morbid imagination. When I was a child, she often talked about death as warning, as an unavoidable matter of fact. Little Debbie's mom down the block might say, 'Honey, look both ways before crossing the street.' My mother's version: 'You don't look, you get smash flat like sand dab.' (Sand dabs were the cheap fish we bought live in the market, distinguished in my mind by their two eyes affixed on one side of their woebegone cartoon faces.)
The warnings grew worse, depending on the danger at hand. Sex education, for example, consisted of the following advice: 'Don't ever let boy kiss you. You do, you can't stop. Then you have baby. You put baby in garbage can. Police find you, put you in jail, then you life over, better just kill youself.
”
”
Amy Tan (The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life)
“
I remembered what it is I like about sex: what I like about sex is that I can lose myself in it entirely. Sex, in fact, is the most absorbing activity I have discovered in adulthood. When I was a child I used to feel this way about all sorts of things—Legos, The Jungle Book, The Hardy Boys, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Saturday morning cartoons...I could forget where I was, the time of day, who I was with. Sex is the only thing I've found like that as a grown-up, give or take the odd film: books are no longer like that once you're out of your teens, and I've certainly never found it in my work. All the horrible pre-sex self-consciousness drains out of me, and I forget where I am, the time of day...and yes, I forget who I'm with, for the time being.
”
”
Nick Hornby (High Fidelity)