Cartoons Love Quotes

I like physics, but I love cartoons.

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.

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.

Tangled is not a cartoon. Tangled is one of the greatest movies of all time. It's about fighting for freedom and true love.

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.

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.

I happen to have a certain fondness for existing--soda wouldn't have that lovely fizzy feeling if you were dead. Think of all the things you would miss: Cartoons, music, movies, video games, music, art, fingernail growth, sex...well, perhaps not sex, depending on how weird your mortician is.

Like, fairy-tale love? Cartoon character with hearts floating all around him? Or a movie montage with the best song? That's what you were to him. You were the biggest, most impossible dream for him.

You can’t feel crazily grateful to be alive your whole life any more than you can stay passionately in love forever—or grieve forever, for that matter. Time makes us all betray ourselves and get back to the busywork of living.

At the Accords Hall, Jace was waiting for them on the front step, looking like Jace in a suit. Jace in a suit was unbearable. He gave Clary a look up and down. “That dress is . . .” He had to clear his throat. Simon enjoyed his discomfiture. Not much ever threw Jace, but Clary had always been able to throw him like a Wiffle ball on a windy day. His eyes were practically cartoon hearts.

Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.

A pat on the back to an artist now could one day result in your favorite film, or the cartoon you loved to get stoned watching, or the song that saves your life. Discourage an artist, you get absolutely nothing in return, ever.

After soft kisses, they pressed their hands together palm to palm. The tingling scattered all over Livia's body, warming her. "Do you feel that?" she whispered with a smile. His lips moved in his silent count. Blake wrapped his fingers around her hand. She copied the movement. Their hands together now resembled a heart-not a cartoon rendering of the shape, but a real human heart. He touched her lips with his and murmured, "I've been feeling it since you first smiled at me.

If you have a son, how will you love him? She is pacing the living room, while the Thanksgiving Day Parade plays behind her, a montage of inflated cartoon bodies, floating slow down 6th Avenue, smiles painted onto their faces. I consider not responding. I consider explaining that I can love him and not trust him. I consider saying that I won’t love him at all. Just to scare her. Instead, I say, If I am ever murdered, like, body found in a ditch, mouth stuffed with dirt, stocking around my neck, identified by my toenails, please don’t go looking for a guilty woman. ("My Grandmother Asks Why I Don't Trust Men")

There are so many important lessons I’ve learned in my journey to now. Trust your instincts, follow your bliss, make plans, work hard, learn to let things go. Don’t be late. Remember that fortune favors the brave. Live. If you need to run, try and run toward something. Study for tests. Laugh at silly cartoons. Be organized. If you fall seven times, get up eight. Always carry an extra pen. Believe you can do everything. Find your key. And the most valuable lesson I’ve learned will forever live in my heart, right beside my husband. Love the one who proves to you that happily ever after is only the beginning.

I loved IRON MAN: Robert Downey Jr. has been and probably will be my favourite actor for a long time…but IRON MAN, THE INCREDIBLE HULK, SUPERMAN RETURNS and all the others feel a little like Saturday morning cartoons next to the carbon black glory that is 'The Dark Knight.' Trust me, *this* is the future of this sort of thing.

I don't know how to describe the magnificence of Carlsbad Caverns without making it sound like a cartoon or a drug trip or a cartoon of a drug trip. The only thing I can say is that it is one of those dear places that make you love the world.

We knew - but didn't want to know - what was going to happen, the sky descending upon our heads like the shadow of a falling piano in a cartoon.

I want to love you like Sunday morning cartoons over soggy cereal.

Well from now on, Linus think for yourself... Don't take any advice from anyone!

It had been more than a year since the Joker’s conquest of America and we were all still in shock and going through the stages of grief but now we needed to come together and set love and beauty and solidarity and friendship against the monstrous forces that faced us. Humanity was the only answer to the cartoon. I had no plan except love. I hoped another plan might emerge in time but for now there was only holding each other tightly and passing strength to each other, body to body, mouth to mouth, spirit to spirit, me to you.

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.

And yet, even as I made these plans, there was a small dismayed corner of my heart. Like those stupid cartoons when you're a kid: little red devil on one shoulder and the little angel in his nightie on the other. My good angel was hiding his eyes.

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.

We sat together on the couch, watching the cartoon skater fail to land jumps and fall in helpless, and probably unrequited love, with his coach. (They're watching Yuri on Ice!!)

When the picture your girlfriend conjures up in your head is of a cartoon skunk, reconsider the relationship.

Sometimes all we need is a little pampering to help us feel better...

Life has its sunshine and its rain, sir... its days and its nights... its peaks and its valleys...

She's wearing the same red and yellow BAM! T-shirt from before, which means (a) she slept in, (b) she owns several identical T-shirts, or (c) she's a cartoon character—all of which are appealing alternatives.

Above them, one of the blackened television screens brightens, and there's an announcement about the in-flight movie. It's an animated film about a family of ducks, one that Hadley's actually see, and when Oliver groans, shes about to deny the whole thing. But then she twists around in her seat and eyes him critically. "There's nothing wrong with ducks," she tells him, and he rolls his eyes. "Talking ducks?" Hadley grins. "They sing, too." "Don't tell me," he says. "You've already seen it." She holds up two fingers. "Twice." "You do know it's meant for five-year-olds, right?" "Five- to eight-year-olds, thank you very much." "And how old are you again?" "Old enough to appreciate our web-footed friends." "You," he says, laughing in spite of himself, "are a mad as a hatter." "Wait a second," Hadley says in mock horror. "Is that a reference to a...cartoon?" No, genius. It's a reference to a famous work of literature by Lewis Carroll. But once again, I can see how well that American education is working for you.

Nobody loves newborns for who they are; they aren’t anyone yet.

I change the channel to another movie. An old one, but new to me. And, ironically, a thin, gorgeous blonde—Meg Ryan, maybe—rides her bike on a country road. She smiles like she has no cares in the world. Like no one ever judges her. Like her life is perfect. Wind through her hair and sunshine on her face. The only thing missing are the rainbows and butterflies and cartoon birds singing on her shoulder. Maybe I should grab my bike and try to catch up with Mom, Mike, and the kids. They can't be going very fast. I would love to feel like that, even if it's just for a second—free and peaceful and normal. Suddenly, there's a truck. It can't be headed toward Meg Ryan. Could it? Yes. Oh my God. No! Meg Ryan just got hit by that truck. Figures. See what happens when you exercise?

Realizing the seriously ruthless, venomous habits and agendas of evil always instills a more fierce passion and longing for a closer God. Men, out of pride, may claim their own authorities over what constitutes good and evil; they may self-proclaim a keen knowledge of subjective morality through religion or science. But that is only if they are acknowledging the work of evil as a cartoon-like, petty little rain cloud in the sky that merely wants to dampen one's spirits. On the contrary, a man could be without a doubt lit with the strength, the peace, and the knowledge of the gods, his gods, but when or if the devils grow weary in unsuccessful attempts to torment him, they begin tormenting his loved ones, or, if not his loved ones, anyone who may attempt to grasp his philosophies. No matter how godly he may become, God is, in the end, his only hope and his only grace for the pressures built around him - it is left up to a higher authority and a more solid peace and a wider love to eclipse not just one's own evils but all evils for goodness to ultimately matter. If all men were gods, each being would dwell in a separate prison cell, hopeless, before finally imploding into nothingness.

My life was awful. When I was a kid, I was fat, pretty ugly and had awful hair. I used to get teased every fucking day, slammed up against lockers, punched in the face - you name it. Hell, I had to go to prom with one of my female friends because I couldn’t even get a proper date. I can’t even look back at those photos because I look so bad. I transferred schools, but the teasing just got worse. After an, let’s say, ‘incident’ I had with the school play the bullying just got worse. But I made it through high school, only to find out that real life was pretty much the same. I just stayed in my dark room all day and didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t go outside. I just stayed inside and drew. I’d draw vampires, mummies, heroes, villains. Anything to help me escape all the bad in the world. I went to art school and didn’t really belong. All I could draw was comic book characters. I tried to put my only good talent to use by drawing a cartoon and pitching it - only to have it turned down. Life to me was just pointless. I started drinking, doing drugs and just generally wasting my life drawing.
Then one day, I saw bodies falling from the sky. I witnessed people dying. And that’s when I decided to turn my life around. I called up anyone I knew who had an instrument and we formed a band. Being on tour for the first few years was bad. All we’d do is get drunk and do drugs, but I loved it. Because I was doing something I loved with people I loved. And a few years ago I met the most perfect woman ever. It’s like we share a wave-link or something. She just knows me without even knowing me, if you understand. And now, 2011, I have a beautiful baby girl, a caring wife and I get to perform for my adoring fans everyday. I am living proof that no matter how bad it gets, it gets better. I am Gerard Way, and I survived.

February falls on top of me like a cartoon piano. I reek of champagne, come, and CK One.

The Pink Panther had been playing on the old antennae TV. He remembered how the slinky, suggestive saxophone triggered something abstractly pleasurable in his child-self.

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.

If you're watching Scooby Doo and think of someone because it's their favorite cartoon. If you're allergic to flour but still eat someone's burnt pancakes. Or if you hate the color green but you wear it because it reminds you of a person's eyes just before you kiss them - well, it might be love.

My mind wandered to all those years of school portraits: the licked palms wrestling cowlicks under the pretense of a loving stroke; letting the boys watch a cartoon while sliding them into handsome, uncomfortable clothes; clumsy efforts to subliminally communicate the value of a “natural” smile. The pictures always came out the same: a forced grin with unparted lips, eyes vacantly gazing into the haze—something from the Diane Arbus scrap pile. But I loved them. I loved the truth they conveyed: that kids aren’t yet able to fake it. Or they aren’t yet able to conceal their disingenuousness. They’re wonderful smilers, the best; but they’re the very worst fake smilers. The inability to fake a smile defines childhood. When Sam thanked me for his room in my new house, he became a man.

I'm the kind of girl who wants to get married in a big, white dress, wearing my grandma's pearls. I want a husband who loves me and is faithful to me. I want him to come home to me every night, and I don't want to have to worry if he's doing his secretary, because he's the kind of man who has too much honor to do that. I want to wait a year and then I want to start trying for the two kids that we'll eventually have, a girl and a boy. And when we have those kids, I do not want, one day, to have to look in their little faces and explain why their daddy is on the internet having relations with everyone from College Honeys to Cougars Gone Wild for money. I want to throw a cartoon themed birthday party at a jump house for my six year old, not mark the occasion by explaining what a "money shot" is. I have a feeling your life goals are somewhat different than mine. And by 'somewhat,' I mean, utterly and completely. Does that explain why it would be a waste of time for both of us to continue being in each other's presence?

Stories had a way of doing that, in Grillo’s experience. It was his belief that nothing, but nothing, could stay secret, however powerful the forces with interests vested in silence. Conspirators might conspire and thugs attempt to gag but the truth, or an approximation of same, would show itself sooner or later, very often in the unlikeliest form. It was seldom hard facts that revealed the life behind the life. It was rumour, graffiti, strip cartoons and love songs.

The dominant way we deal with death in our culture is religious. And our religious culture deals with death by pretending it isn’t real. Religion deals with death by pretending it isn’t permanent; by pretending that the loss of the ones we love is just like a long vacation apart; by pretending that our dead loved ones are still hanging around somehow, like the dead grandparents in a “Family Circus” cartoon; by pretending that our own death is just a one-way trip to a different place. Our religious culture deals with death by putting it on the back burner, by encouraging people to stick their fingers in their ears and yell, “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!

You're a centurion," Ty said. "You have vows-" "vows of friendship and love are stronger," said Diego. Drusilla looked at him with cartoon hearts in her eyes. "That's beautiful." Mark rolled his eyes. He was clearly not a member of the perfect Diego appreciation society.

To be honest, I love watching some of the old cartoons and new ones that are popular. It's another way to make me happy and reminisce the good old times. Plus, it makes me forget the recreational world around me. If only the economy would let loose and not tire everyone out. I'm just saying. People have an inner child somewhere. I have one, too. So it's cool to have an inner child at times. It can brighten your day and see another view in life.

Paradoxically, admitting your own powerlessness can free you from the need to fix everything and allow us to be truly present to the other person, and to listen. A cartoon in The New Yorker had one woman saying testily to her friend, 'There's no point in our being friends if you won't let me fix you.

Harris loved to read and he shared everything he read. He read to whoever happened to be in the room from whatever paper he happened to be making his way through. Ann Landers and the horoscope, of course, headlines, cartoons, Miss Manners, Heloise, the lives of others, in many forms, long articles on astronomy or anthropology, political pieces, op-ed pieces, book reviews, church bazaars, executions, plane crashes, disco artists, whatever caught his interest.

i almost do. i’d love to live in his musical cartoon world, where witches like maura get vanquished with one heroic word, and all the forest creatures are happy when two gay guys walk hand-in-hand through the meadow, and gideon is the himbo suitor you know the princess can’t marry, because her heart belongs to the beast. i’m sure it’s a lovely world, where these things happen. a rich, spoiled, colorful world. maybe one day i’ll get to visit, but i doubt it. worlds like that don’t tend to issue visas to fuckups like me.

My heartbeats skipped and the vixen inside me sang like some kind of love-struck heroine in a Disney cartoon.

My dad was a shooter, or submission wrestler, and he loved to stretch anyone who dared to show up at his door. I remember him stretching the daylights out of Father Roberts, the Catholic priest who baptized all the Hart kids. Father Roberts got closer to God in my father’s basement dungeon than he felt comfortable with. But Stu was non-denominational; he stretched a rabbi once too.

Dude, you got me cartoon underwear?!” I knew she would like them, they matched her socks. She pulled the pastel fabric from the bag, their kitty faces smiling back at me along with her bemused smirk.

The missing remained missing and the portraits couldn't change that. But when Akhmed slid the finished portrait across the desk and the family saw the shape of that beloved nose, the air would flee the room, replaced by the miracle of recognition as mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, and cousin found in that nose the son, brother, nephew, and cousin that had been, would have been, could have been, and they might race after the possibility like cartoon characters dashing off a cliff, held by the certainty of the road until they looked down -- and plummeted is the word used by the youngest brother who, at the age of sixteen, is tired of being the youngest and hopes his older brother will return for many reasons, not least so he will marry and have a child and the youngest brother will no longer be youngest; that youngest brother, the one who has nothing to say about the nose because he remembers his older brother's nose and doesn't need the nose to mean what his parents need it to mean, is the one who six months later would be disappeared in the back of a truck, as his older brother was, who would know the Landfill through his blindfold and gag by the rich scent of clay, as his older brother had known, whose fingers would be wound with the electrical wires that had welded to his older brother's bones, who would stand above a mass grave his brother had dug and would fall in it as his older brother had, though taking six more minutes and four more bullets to die, would be buried an arm's length of dirt above his brother and whose bones would find over time those of his older brother, and so, at that indeterminate point in the future, answer his mother's prayer that her boys find each other, wherever they go; that younger brother would have a smile on his face and the silliest thought in his skull a minute before the first bullet would break it, thinking of how that day six months earlier, when they all went to have his older brother's portrait made, he should have had his made, too, because now his parents would have to make another trip, and he hoped they would, hoped they would because even if he knew his older brother's nose, he hadn't been prepared to see it, and seeing that nose, there, on the page, the density of loss it engendered, the unbelievable ache of loving and not having surrounded him, strong enough to toss him, as his brother had, into the summer lake, but there was nothing but air, and he'd believed that plummet was as close as they would ever come again, and with the first gunshot one brother fell within arms' reach of the other, and with the fifth shot the blindfold dissolved and the light it blocked became forever, and on the kitchen wall of his parents' house his portrait hangs within arm's reach of his older brother's, and his mother spends whole afternoons staring at them, praying that they find each other, wherever they go.

I'm going to lay it out straight for you here, Carson. And the reason that I'm going to do that is because I have every confidence that it will scare you off badly enough that I can then finish my drink in peace, and we can part as acquaintances who simply have nothing in common." He raised one eyebrow and I joined my hands in my lap, tilting my head as I continued. "I'm the kind of girl who wants to get married in a big, white dress, wearing my grandma's pearls. I want a husband who love me and is faithful to me. I want him to come home me every night, and I don't want to have to worry if he's doing his secretary, because he's the kind of man who has too much honor to do that. I want to wait a year and then I want to start trying for the two kids that we'll eventually have, a girl and a boy. And when we have those kids, I do not want, one day, to have to explain why their daddy is on the internet having relations with everyone from College Honeys to Cougars Gone Wild for money. I want to throw a cartoon themed birthday party at a jump house for my six year old, not mark the occasion by explaining what a "money shot" is. I have a feeling your life goals are somewhat different than mine. And by 'somewhat,' I mean, utterly and completely. Does that explain why it would be a waste of time for both of us to continue being in each other's presence?" Chapter 1

ONE All the best things in my life have started with a Dolly Parton song. Including my friendship with Ellen Dryver. The song that sealed the deal was “Dumb Blonde” from her 1967 debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly. During the summer before first grade, my aunt Lucy bonded with Mrs. Dryver over their mutual devotion to Dolly. While they sipped sweet tea in the dining room, Ellen and I would sit on the couch watching cartoons, unsure of what to make of each other. But then one afternoon that song came on over Mrs. Dryver’s stereo. Ellen tapped her foot as I hummed along, and before Dolly had even hit the chorus, we were spinning in circles and singing at the top of our lungs. Thankfully, our love for each other and Dolly ended up running deeper than one song. I

Mother-daughter relationships can be complicated and fraught with the effects of moments from the past. My mom knew this and wanted me to know it too. On one visit home, I found an essay from the Washington Post by the linguistics professor Deborah Tannen that had been cut out and left on my desk. My mom, and her mom before her, loved clipping newspaper articles and cartoons from the paper to send to Barbara and me. This article was different. Above it, my mom had written a note: “Dear Benny”—I was “Benny” from the time I was a toddler; the family folklore was that when we were babies, a man approached my parents, commenting on their cute baby boys, and my parents played along, pretending our names were Benjamin and Beauregard, later shorted to Benny and Bo. In her note, my mom confessed to doing many things that the writer of this piece had done: checking my hair, my appearance. As a teenager, I was continually annoyed by some of her requests: comb your hair; pull up your jeans (remember when low-rise jeans were a thing? It was not a good look, I can assure you!). “Your mother may assume it goes without saying that she is proud of you,” Deborah Tannen wrote. “Everyone knows that. And everyone probably also notices that your bangs are obscuring your vision—and their view of your eyes. Because others won’t say anything, your mother may feel it’s her obligation to tell you.” In leaving her note and the clipping, my mom was reminding me that she accepted and loved me—and that there is no perfect way to be a mother. While we might have questioned some of the things our mother said, we never questioned her love.

You make me better on the field, but off the field, too, Sky. I love how you make me feel. Being around you is intoxicating and freeing, but it's also the first sense of home I've had in such a long time. You're funny and sweet, and you don't seem to mind that I told you for the first time while that I love you my toddler is singing a cartoon theme song in the background.

This took place just before the war, in the relatively rosz times, when we were euphoric with the imminence of disaster – we drank and laughed and experimented with poetic forms into the late hours. We tried to keep the war away from the Table, but now and the na budding Serbian patriot would start ranting about the suppression of his people’s culture, whereupon Dedo, with his newly acquired elder status, would indeed suppress him with a sequence of carefully arranged insults and curses. Inevitably, the nationalist would declare Dedo an Islamofascist and storm off, never to return, while we, the fools, laughed uproariously. We knew – but we didn’t want to know – what was going to happen, the sky descending upon our heads like the shadow of a falling piano in a cartoon.

I do love Alice in Wonderland though. That’s something I think I could do very well. Don’t you think we ought to do an A.W.? A.W.’s Alice in Wonderland? Andy Warhol’s Alice in Wonderland? A.W. stands for a lot of things, I understand. It would make a fantastic film, so I wanted somebody to write the script for it in a modern sense. I think it would be the most marvelous movie in the world if it could be done, don’t you think? Really, I don’t think they’ve done one since they did a Walt Disney one - which isn’t really doing it. In a sense it is, but not in the way it really should be done. What’s needed right now is a real scene. I mean not just cartoon characters, but the actual character of people because there’s so many fantastic people that you might as well use the people.

Thus is the defining characteristic of gay millennials: we straddle the pre-Glee and post-Glee worlds. We went to high school when faggot wasn’t even considered an F-word, when being a lesbian meant boys just didn’t want you, when being nonbinary wasn’t even a remote option. We grew up without queer characters in our cartoons or Nickelodeon or Disney or TGIF sitcoms. We were raised in homophobia, came of age as the world changed around us, and are raising children in an age where it’s never been easier to be same-sex parents. We’re both lucky and jealous. As the state of gay evolved culturally and politically, we were old enough to see it and process it and not take it for granted–old enough to know what the world was like without it. Despite the success of Drag Race, the existence of lesbian Christmas rom-coms, and openly transgender Oscar nominees, we haven’t moved on from the trauma of growing up in a culture that hates us. We don’t move on from trauma, really. We can’t really leave it in the past. It becomes a part of us, and we move forward with it. For LGBTQ+ millennials, our pride is couched in painful memories of a culture repulsed and frightened by queerness. That makes us skittish. It makes us loud. It makes us fear that all this progress, all this tolerance , all of Billy Porter's red carpet looks can vanish as quickly as it all appeared.

During slavery they made us hate ourselves for being black as if it was a “Curse” because of the “Curse of Canaan” story.  So as we got older it was the norm to love our slavemasters children.  We watched our children get sold into slavery and we watched them starve.  We nursed their babies while our babies died.  We took care of the master’s house chores and the master’s family while our family was in turmoil.  We watched their children go off to school while our children died in the streets.  We learned to love the image of a “White Saviour” because we were taught that black skin was “ugly” and a “curse”.   We went from watching cartoons with white princesses and princes to watching T.V. sitcoms where whites dominated the cast.  As a result we wanted our hair to look “straight” like the Princesses we saw on T.V. or the girl that was liked by all the boys.  This mental brainwashing was “key” in the process of erasing our “true identity”.

It’s true that when it’s time to go, someone will be waiting for you. It might be a relative or a loved one, but not always. It could be a dog, hanging out with a tennis ball and ready to play again. Sometimes, when children die, they don’t know any of their relatives who are on the other side, so they’ll have an angel or even maybe a cartoon character or Santa Claus waiting to pull them across that bridge. It’s just a manifestation of energy saying, “Come on, baby, it’s okay.

Is it true it takes thirteen months for a female to carry and give birth?” “Minimum.” He said it with such casual dismissal that Bella laughed. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to lug the kid around inside of you all that time. You, just like your human counterparts, have the fun part over with like that.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. His dark eyes narrowed and he reached to enclose her hand in his, pulling her wrist up to the slow, purposeful brush of his lips even as he maintained a sensual eye contact that was far too full of promises. Isabella caught her breath as an insidious sensation of heated pins and needles stitched its way up her arm. “I promise you, Bella, a male Demon’s part in a mating is never over like this.” He mimicked her snap, making her jump in time to her kick-starting heartbeat. “Well”—she cleared her throat—“I guess I’ll have to take your word on that.” Jacob did not respond in agreement, and that unnerved her even further. Instinctively, she changed tack. “So, what brings you down into the dusty atmosphere of the great Demon library?” she asked, knowing she sounded like a brightly animated cartoon. “You.” Oh, how that singular word was pregnant with meaning, intent, and devastatingly blatant honesty. Isabella was forced to remind herself of the whole Demon-human mating taboo as the forbidden response of heat continued to writhe around beneath her skin, growing exponentially in intensity every moment he hovered close. She tried to picture all kinds of scary things that could happen if she did not quit egging him on like she was. How she was, she didn’t know, but she was always certain she was egging him on. “Why did you want to see me?” she asked, breaking away from him and bending to retrieve the book she had dropped. It was huge and heavy and she grunted softly under the weight of it. It landed with a slam and another puff of dust on the table she had made into her own private study station. “Because I cannot seem to help myself, lovely little Bella.

About sexuality of English mice. A warm perfume is growing little by little in the room. An orchard scent, a caramelized sugar scent. Mrs. MOUSE roasts apples in the chimney. The apple fruits smell grass of England and the pastry oven. On a thread drawn in the flames, the apples, from the buried autumn, turn a golden color and grind in tempting bubbles. But I have the feeling that you already worry. Mrs. MOUSE in a Laura Ashley apron, pink and white stripes, with a big purple satin bow on her belt, Mrs. MOUSE is certainly not a free mouse? Certainly she cooks all day long lemon meringue tarts, puddings and cheese pies, in the kitchen of the burrow. She suffocates a bit in the sweet steams, looks with a sigh the patched socks trickling, hanging from the ceiling, between mint leaves and pomegranates. Surely Mrs. MOUSE just knows the inside, and all the evening flavours are just good for Mrs. MOUSE flabbiness. You are totally wrong - we can forgive you – we don’t know enough that the life in the burrow is totally communal. To pick the blackberries, the purplish red elderberries, the beechnuts and the sloes Mr. and Mrs. MOUSE escape in turn, and glean in the bushes the winter gatherings. After, with frozen paws, intoxicated with cold wind, they come back in the burrow, and it’s a good time when the little door, rond little oak wood door brings a yellow ray in the blue of the evening. Mr. and Mrs. MOUSE are from outside and from inside, in the most complete commonality of wealth and climate. While Mrs. MOUSE prepares the hot wine, Mr. MOUSE takes care of the children. On the top of the bunk bed Thimoty is reading a cartoon, Mr. MOUSE helps Benjamin to put a fleece-lined pyjama, one in a very sweet milky blue for snow dreams. That’s it … children are in bed …. Mrs. MOUSE blazes the hot wine near the chimney, it smells lemon, cinnamon, big dry flames, a blue tempest. Mr. and Mrs. MOUSE can wait and watch. They drink slowly, and then .... they will make love ….You didn’t know? It’s true, we need to guess it. Don’t expect me to tell you in details the mice love in patchwork duvets, the deep cherry wood bed. It’s just good enough not to speak about it. Because, to be able to speak about it, it would need all the perfumes, all the silent, all the talent and all the colors of the day. We already make love preparing the blackberries wine, the lemon meringue pie, we already make love going outside in the coldness to earn the wish of warmness and come back. We make love downstream of the day, as we take care of our patiences. It’s a love very warm, very present and yet invisible, mice’s love in the duvets. Imagine, dream a bit ….. Don’t speak too badly about English mice’s sexuality …..

Finding Nemo," Gavin mumbled.               We watched the movie in silence for a few minutes and I felt like a kid again as I enjoyed the happenings on the screen. It had been a long while since I watched a cartoon.               "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.

There were the signed, spiral-bound Spirit-in-the-Woods yearbooks from three summers in a row and the aerial photograph of everyone at camp the second summer. In it, Ethan's feet were planted on Jule's head, and Jule's feet were planted on Goodman's head, and so on and so on. And didn't it always go like that-body parts not quite 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.

Deacon met my glare with an impish grin. “Anyway, did you celebrate Valentine’s Day when you were slumming with the mortals?” I blinked. “Not really. Why?” Aiden snorted and then disappeared into one of the rooms. “Follow me,” Deacon said. “You’re going to love this. I just know it.” I followed him down the dimly-lit corridor that was sparsely decorated. We passed several closed doors and a spiral staircase. Deacon went through an archway and stopped, reaching along the wall. Light flooded the room. It was a typical sunroom, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, wicker furniture, and colorful plants. Deacon stopped by a small potted plant sitting on a ceramic coffee table. It looked like a miniature pine tree that was missing several limbs. Half the needles were scattered in and around the pot. One red Christmas bulb hung from the very top branch, causing the tree to tilt to the right. “What do you think?” Deacon asked. “Um… well, that’s a really different Christmas tree, but I’m not sure what that has to do with Valentine’s Day.” “It’s sad,” Aiden said, strolling into the room. “It’s actually embarrassing to look at. What kind of tree is it, Deacon?” He beamed. “It’s called a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.” Aiden rolled his eyes. “Deacon digs this thing out every year. The pine isn’t even real. And he leaves it up from Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day. Which thank the gods is the day after tomorrow. That means he’ll be taking it down.” I ran my fingers over the plastic needles. “I’ve seen the cartoon.” Deacon sprayed something from an aerosol can. “It’s my MHT tree.” “MHT tree?” I questioned. “Mortal Holiday Tree,” Deacon explained, and smiled. “It covers the three major holidays. During Thanksgiving it gets a brown bulb, a green one for Christmas, and a red one for Valentine’s Day.” “What about New Year’s Eve?” He lowered his chin. “Now, is that really a holiday?” “The mortals think so.” I folded my arms. “But they’re wrong. The New Year is during the summer solstice,” Deacon said. “Their math is completely off, like most of their customs. For example, did you know that Valentine’s Day wasn’t actually about love until Geoffrey Chaucer did his whole courtly love thing in the High Middle Ages?” “You guys are so weird.” I grinned at the brothers. “That we are,” Aiden replied. “Come on, I’ll show you your room.” “Hey Alex,” Deacon called. “We’re making cookies tomorrow, since it’s Valentine’s Eve.” Making cookies on Valentine’s Eve? I didn’t even know if there was such a thing as Valentine’s Eve. I laughed as I followed Aiden out of the room. “You two really are opposites.” “I’m cooler!” Deacon yelled from his Mortal Holiday Tree room

we stared at each other, and I knew we were both thinking about the same exact thing: the night before. Not the long talk we’d had about our families—and that raw honesty we’d given each other—but about what happened after that. The movie. The damn movie. I didn’t know what the hell I’d been thinking, fully fucking aware I was already mopey, when I asked if he wanted to watch my favorite movie as a kid. I’d watched it hundreds of times. Hundreds of times. It felt like love and hope. And I was an idiot. And Aiden, being a nice person who apparently let me get away with most of the things I wanted, said, “Sure. I might fall asleep during it.” He hadn’t fallen asleep. If there was one thing I learned that night was that no one was impervious to Little Foot losing his mom. Nobody. He’d only slightly rolled his eyes when the cartoon started, but when I glanced over at him, he’d been watching faithfully. When that awful, terrible, why-would-you-do-that-to-children-and-to-humanity-in-general part came on The Land Before Time, my heart still hadn’t learned how to cope and I was feeling so low, the hiccups coming out were worse than usual. My vision got cloudy. I got choked up. Tears were coming out of my eyes like the powerful Mississippi. Time and dozens of viewings hadn’t toughened me up at all. And as I’d wiped at my face and tried to remind myself it was just a movie and a young dinosaur hadn’t lost his beloved mom, I heard a sniffle. A sniffle that wasn’t my own. I turned not-so-discreetly and saw him. I saw the starry eyes and the way his throat bobbed with a gulp. Then I saw the sideways look he shot me as I sat there dealing with my own emotions, and we stared at each other. In silence. The big guy wasn’t handling it, and if there were ever a time in any universe, watching any movie, this would be the cause of it. All I could do was nod at him, get up to my knees, and lean over so I could wrap my arms around his neck and tell him in as soothing of a voice as I could get together, “I know, big guy. I know,” even as another round of tears came out of my eyes and possibly some snot out of my nose. The miraculous part was that he let me. Aiden sat there and let me hug him, let me put my cheek over the top of his head and let him know it was okay. Maybe it happened because we’d just been talking about the faulty relationships we had with our families or maybe it was because a child losing its mother was just about the saddest thing in the world, especially when it was an innocent animal, I don’t know. But it was sad as shit. He sniffed—on any other person smaller than him it would have been considered a sniffle—and I squeezed my arms around him a little tighter before going back to my side of the bed where we finished watching the movie

The more subtle, and often less easily spottable, combination from hell is when partners of different tendencies date but can’t accommodate. Initial attraction may be strong – contrast makes for interest – and when we’re safely in love there may be no trigger for attachment wobbles. But fast forward a little: inject any kind of stress or insecurity and the dynamic will make both sides crazy. Anxious plus avoidant means one of us clings, the other pulls away. Avoidant plus attacking means one of us runs, the other pushes to engage. Attacking plus anxious means one fights, the other fears. The result can be a Tom and Jerry cartoon-type chase, with A emotionally pursuing B round the room of the relationship.

Anyway how are you doing, crybaby? You’re fifteen now right? Crazy huh? How is school going? If you ask someone out, don’t make her kiss you right away. Also, don’t make her keep it a secret. It will make her feel bad. Are you still watching too many cartoons? What do you do in your free time? Jake does karate. I think it’s very manly. Not like someone like me needs protecting, but it’s nice to know he could, you know? My teachers say I’m good at English. My aunt thinks I should be a writer, like her of course. What do they even do? I miss you. I haven’t had a friend as good as you. Remember how scared you were I would lose your address? I showed you. Well I don’t have anything else to say. I love you. Yours, Nicole

I know what this is," he whispers, his voice faint above the music. I've known it from that first night I saw you at the show, but now there's no doubt in my mind." My gaze is entwined with his. Our eyes are locked and the key is gone. My heart feels full in my chest, heavy but in a good way. "It's love," he says, letting the words slip freely from his mouth. And when they do, they fill the air and multiply like musical notes in a cartoon. "Love," I say as the record crackles and skips. "Love," he whispers back, weaving his fingers in mine. And when I set my head on his pillow, and our bodies become one, for the first time in my life I feel as if everything in this crazy, complicated world makes complete and utter sense.

I hope they understand, my sons, both now and in the future just materializing in the dark, that all these hours their mother has been walking so swiftly away from them I have not been gone, that my spirit, hours ago, slipped back into the house and crept into the room where their early-rising father had already fallen asleep, usually before eight p.m., and that I touched this gentle man whom I love so desperately and somehow fear so much, touched him on the pulse in his temple and felt his dreams, which are too distant for the likes of me; and I climbed the creaking old stairs and at the top split in two, and heading into the boys’ separate rooms, I slid through the crack under the doors and curled myself on the pillows to breathe into me the breath that my children breathed out. Every pause between the end of one breath and the beginning of the next is long; then again, nothing is not always in transition. Soon, tomorrow, the boys will be men, then the men will leave the house, and my husband and I will look at each other crouching under the weight of all that we wouldn’t or couldn’t yell, as well as all those hours outside walking together, my body, my shadow, and the moon. It is terribly true, even if the truth does not comfort, that if you look at the moon for long enough night after night, as I have, you will see that the old cartoons are correct, that the moon is, in fact, laughing. But it is not laughing at us, we lonely humans, who are far too small and our lives far too fleeting for it to give us any notice at all.

Bruce Wayne Carmody had been unhappy for so long that it had stopped being a state he paid attention to. Sometimes Wayne felt that the world had been sliding apart beneath his feet for years. He was still waiting for it to pull him down, to bury him at last. His mother had been crazy for a while, had believed that the phone was ringing when it wasn’t, had conversations with dead children who weren’t there. Sometimes he felt she had talked more with dead children than she ever had with him. She had burned down their house. She spent a month in a psychiatric hospital, skipped out on a court appearance, and dropped out of Wayne’s life for almost two years. She spent a while on book tour, visiting bookstores in the morning and local bars at night. She hung out in L.A. for six months, working on a cartoon version of Search Engine that never got off the ground and a cocaine habit that did. She spent a while drawing covered bridges for a gallery show that no one went to. Wayne’s father got sick of Vic’s drinking, Vic’s wandering, and Vic’s crazy, and he took up with the lady who had done most of his tattoos, a girl named Carol who had big hair and dressed like it was still the eighties. Only Carol had another boyfriend, and they stole Lou’s identity and ran off to California, where they racked up a ten-thousand-dollar debt in Lou’s name. Lou was still dealing with creditors. Bruce Wayne Carmody wanted to love and enjoy his parents, and occasionally he did. But they made it hard. Which was why the papers in his back pocket felt like nitroglycerin, a bomb that hadn’t exploded yet.

At home, she loved the movies. She loved sitting in the dark, waiting for something wonderful to begin. Especially, the tragic and frightening movies in which ladies fainted dead away and monsters roared up out of the dark. Like in that cartoon her mother had taken her to see when she was very small, in which the dark-haired princess ran away into the terrible forest and the owls flew at her and pecked at her hands. That was wonderful--because the world was suddenly alive and excited and wanted things just the way September herself sometimes wanted things. Even if the world seemed mainly not to want a princess bothering it. September had not liked the princess so much, either, as she had a high, breathy voice she found deeply annoying. But the owls and the mines and the flashing eyes in the wood--that she had liked.

Some people stay married for lifetimes, decade after decade, great skelps of centuries together until they're almost in the same skin, growing into each other, shrinking to each other's sizes and shapes, speaking with one voice, clinging fast together, dying days or hours apart. Love doesn't come into it. Not the love of cartoon hearts and cards and cakes and movies and ads for things that no one needs; that grisly synthetic thing, that smiling dog. Love is just a word used to explain away the impossibility of this co-existence, the glorious achievement of being together in the same place, of being happy, and peaceful, and calm, and meeting up again at Heaven's gate, and walking hand in hand to the eternal light. Fairy stories. Couples in care homes curled together in fear of being alone, of being left in darkness and silence, listening for the step of a stranger, too afraid even to use the commode. This happens, people are left like this. It's better this way, to have smashed it all to bits while we're still to separate people.

I found out Si was taking naps every day on Kay’s couch! I went to Phil and told him it was a problem. “Look, I know he’s your brother and he’s my uncle, but he’s not the kind of worker we need to have,” I told Phil, while trying to make a good first impression. I was trying to instill a new work ethic and culture in Duck Commander, and I couldn’t have Si sleeping on the job! “Don’t touch Si,” Phil told me. “You leave him alone. He’s making reeds and that’s the hardest thing we do. Si is the only guy who wants to do it, and he’s good at it. Si is fine.” Amazingly enough, in the ten years I’ve been running Duck Commander, we’ve never once run out of reeds. Six years ago, Si suffered a heart attack. He smoked cigarettes for almost forty years and then quit after his heart attack, so we were all so proud of him. Even before his heart attack, I wasn’t sure about putting Si on our DVDs because I thought he would just come across too crazy. He cracked us up in the duck blind and we all loved him, but I told Jep and the other camera guys to film around him. Honestly, I didn’t think anyone would understand what he was saying. When we finally tried to put him on the DVDs, he clammed up in front of the camera and looked like a frog in a cartoon just sitting there. He wouldn’t perform. Finally, we put a hidden camera under a shirt on Si’s desk. We were near the end of editing a DVD and showed a shooting scene to Si. He always takes credit for shooting more ducks than he really did. He’s said before that he killed three ducks with one shot! We were watching patterns hitting the water, and Si started claiming the ducks like he always does and going off on one of his long tangents. After we recorded him, we ran the DVD back and showed it to him. I think Si saw that he was actually pretty funny and entertaining if he acted like himself. We started putting Si on the DVDs and he got more and more popular. Now he’s the star of Duck Dynasty!

The reality is that men are hurting and that the whole culture responds to them by saying, “Please do not tell us what you feel.” I have always been a fan of the Sylvia cartoon where two women sit, one looking into a crystal ball as the other woman says, “He never talks about his feelings.” And the woman who can see the future says, “At two P.M. all over the world men will begin to talk about their feelings—and women all over the world will be sorry.” If we cannot heal what we cannot feel, by supporting patriarchal culture that socializes men to deny feelings, we doom them to live in states of emotional numbness. We construct a culture where male pain can have no voice, where male hurt cannot be named or healed. It is not just men who do not take their pain seriously. Most women do not want to deal with male pain if it interferes with the satisfaction of female desire. When feminist movement led to men’s liberation, including male exploration of “feelings,” some women mocked male emotional expression with the same disgust and contempt as sexist men. Despite all the expressed feminist longing for men of feeling, when men worked to get in touch with feelings, no one really wanted to reward them. In feminist circles men who wanted to change were often labeled narcissistic or needy. Individual men who expressed feelings were often seen as attention seekers, patriarchal manipulators trying to steal the stage with their drama. When I was in my twenties, I would go to couples therapy, and my partner of more than ten years would explain how I asked him to talk about his feelings and when he did, I would freak out. He was right. It was hard for me to face that I did not want to hear about his feelings when they were painful or negative, that I did not want my image of the strong man truly challenged by learning of his weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Here I was, an enlightened feminist woman who did not want to hear my man speak his pain because it revealed his emotional vulnerability. It stands to reason, then, that the masses of women committed to the sexist principle that men who express their feelings are weak really do not want to hear men speak, especially if what they say is that they hurt, that they feel unloved. Many women cannot hear male pain about love because it sounds like an indictment of female failure. Since sexist norms have taught us that loving is our task whether in our role as mothers or lovers or friends, if men say they are not loved, then we are at fault; we are to blame.

Twenty years? No kidding: twenty years? It’s hard to believe. Twenty years ago, I was—well, I was much younger. My parents were still alive. Two of my grandchildren had not yet been born, and another one, now in college, was an infant. Twenty years ago I didn’t own a cell phone. I didn’t know what quinoa was and I doubt if I had ever tasted kale. There had recently been a war. Now we refer to that one as the First Gulf War, but back then, mercifully, we didn’t know there would be another. Maybe a lot of us weren’t even thinking about the future then. But I was. And I’m a writer. I wrote The Giver on a big machine that had recently taken the place of my much-loved typewriter, and after I printed the pages, very noisily, I had to tear them apart, one by one, at the perforated edges. (When I referred to it as my computer, someone more knowledgeable pointed out that my machine was not a computer. It was a dedicated word processor. “Oh, okay then,” I said, as if I understood the difference.) As I carefully separated those two hundred or so pages, I glanced again at the words on them. I could see that I had written a complete book. It had all the elements of the seventeen or so books I had written before, the same things students of writing list on school quizzes: characters, plot, setting, tension, climax. (Though I didn’t reply as he had hoped to a student who emailed me some years later with the request “Please list all the similes and metaphors in The Giver,” I’m sure it contained those as well.) I had typed THE END after the intentionally ambiguous final paragraphs. But I was aware that this book was different from the many I had already written. My editor, when I gave him the manuscript, realized the same thing. If I had drawn a cartoon of him reading those pages, it would have had a text balloon over his head. The text would have said, simply: Gulp. But that was twenty years ago. If I had written The Giver this year, there would have been no gulp. Maybe a yawn, at most. Ho-hum. In so many recent dystopian novels (and there are exactly that: so many), societies battle and characters die hideously and whole civilizations crumble. None of that in The Giver. It was introspective. Quiet. Short on action. “Introspective, quiet, and short on action” translates to “tough to film.” Katniss Everdeen gets to kill off countless adolescent competitors in various ways during The Hunger Games; that’s exciting movie fare. It sells popcorn. Jonas, riding a bike and musing about his future? Not so much. Although the film rights to The Giver were snapped up early on, it moved forward in spurts and stops for years, as screenplay after screenplay—none of them by me—was

To the best-selling atheists of our time, who have lumped us all together into one ridiculous religious cartoon and then proudly announce that they don’t believe in the God that most of us don’t believe in either, I say, for the love of God … RESIST!

This is one of the things I love about Ghana, it allows you, if you want, to learn so much, because regularly, people are unhelpful and if you turn it around so it’s of benefit to you, you learn a lot. I couldn’t find anyone who would cartoon for me, so I spent six months, often up to fifteen hours a day, teaching myself and creating cartoons that would work for me.

Commercial firms turned out Claghorn shirts and compasses (the needles always pointed south, son); Delmar cut two Claghorn records, I Love You, That Is and That’s a Joke, Son, and Warner Brothers pirated the concept for use in a series of cartoons. The strutting cartoon rooster, Foghorn J. Leghorn, was an obvious steal from Delmar: the cutting irony, he said years later, was that the cartoons were copyrighted, so that, from then on, “in order to do Claghorn, I had to ask permission from Warner Brothers.

The next morning, Peter is waiting in the parking lot for me when I get off the bus. “Hey,” he says. “Are you seriously taking the bus every day?” “My car is being fixed, remember? My accident?” He sighs like this is somehow offensive to him, me taking the bus to school. Then he grabs my hand and holds it as we walk into school together. This is the first time I’ve walked down the school hallway holding hands with a boy. It should feel momentous, special, but it doesn’t, because it’s not real. Honestly, it feels like nothing. Emily Nussbaum does a double take when she sees us. Emily is Gen’s best friend. She’s staring so hard I’m surprised she doesn’t take a quick pic on her phone to send to Gen. Peter keeps stopping to say hi to people, and I stand there smiling like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Me and Peter Kavinsky. At one point I try to let go of his hand, because mine is starting to feel sweaty, but he tightens his grip. “Your hand is too hot,” I hiss. Through clenched teeth he says, “No, your hand is.” I’m sure Genevieve’s hands are never sweaty. She could probably hold hands for days without getting overheated. When we get to my locker, we finally drop hands so I can dump my books inside. I’m shutting my locker door when Peter leans in and tries to kiss me on the mouth. I’m so startled I turn my head, and we hit foreheads. “Ow!” Peter rubs his forehead and glares at me. “Well, don’t just sneak up on me like that!” My forehead hurts too. We really banged them hard, like cymbals. If I looked up right now, I would see blue cartoon birdies. “Lower your voice, dummy,” he says through clenched teeth. “Don’t you call me a dummy, you dummy,” I whisper back. Peter heaves a big sigh like he’s really annoyed with me. I’m about to snap at him that it’s his fault, not mine, when I catch a glimpse of Genevieve gliding down the hallway. “Gotta go,” I say, and I dart off in the opposite direction. “Wait!” Peter calls out. But I keep darting.

Making love to make a child, the intensity that must bring, the way their eyes would be locked in wonder at this thing they were doing. The surreal swelling of her belly, skin straining like it might tear, the bump of a tiny foot moving beneath. Playgrounds and patched knees. Midnight emergency room visits. Cartoon-themed birthday parties with sheet cake and balloons. The ache of standing over a single bed, watching a child sleep, knowing that someday that child would have a life of their own, that they would leave and never truly return. Dinner

Omri entered the house by the side door, which opened into the kitchen. His black and white cat, Kitsa, was sitting on the drainboard. She watched him out of her knowing green eyes as he came to get a drink of water. “You’re not supposed to be up there, Kits,” he said, “you know that.” She continued to stare at him. He flicked some water on her but she ignored it. He laughed and stroked her head. He was crazy about her. He loved her independence and disobedience. He helped himself to a hunk of bread, butter and Primula cheese, and walked through into the breakfast room. It was their every-meal room, actually. Omri sat down and opened the paper to the cartoon. Kitsa came in, and jumped, not onto his knee but onto the table, where she lay down on the newspaper right over the bit he was looking at. She was always doing this—she couldn’t bear to see people reading.

Cousteau loved sports, Kumi the soap operas, Chewy the Clint Eastwood films, and Reuben the cartoons.

I love this place already," Max says as he gazes at the flying saucer not op of the blue-and-coral-pink building that is South Beach Fish Market. The hole-in-the-wall seafood joint is quirky for sure with the random artwork and sculptures all over the exterior. Giant cartoon renderings of fish and crustaceans in vivid colors adorn the outside, while the roof boasts a silver flying saucer and a lighthouse. "Wait until you taste the food," I say. It's a long wait in line, but I know once we get our meals and find a spot to sit down at one of the outdoor picnic tables, it'll be worth it. As we sit down, I savor the clear summer weather with the sun shining bright above us, offering warmth against the brisk coastal breeze. When the aroma of spices, lemon, and batter hits my nose, my stomach roars. I inhale my fish and chips before Max is even halfway done with his oysters and halibut. "Damn," he says around a mouthful of food. "Sometimes I forget how monstrous your appetite is. I would have never guessed given your size. But every time I watch you eat, I'm reminded all over again." I dig into my clam chowder. "Food is my life. I am not ashamed of it.

I love this place already," Max says as he gazes at the flying saucer on top of the blue-and-coral-pink building that is South Beach Fish Market. The hole-in-the-wall seafood joint is quirky for sure with the random artwork and sculptures all over the exterior. Giant cartoon renderings of fish and crustaceans in vivid colors adorn the outside, while the roof boasts a silver flying saucer and a lighthouse. "Wait until you taste the food," I say. It's a long wait in line, but I know once we get our meals and find a spot to sit down at one of the outdoor picnic tables, it'll be worth it. As we sit down, I savor the clear summer weather with the sun shining bright above us, offering warmth against the brisk coastal breeze. When the aroma of spices, lemon, and batter hits my nose, my stomach roars. I inhale my fish and chips before Max is even halfway done with his oysters and halibut. "Damn," he says around a mouthful of food. "Sometimes I forget how monstrous your appetite is. I would have never guessed given your size. But every time I watch you eat, I'm reminded all over again." I dig into my clam chowder. "Food is my life. I am not ashamed of it.

One-dimensional people are cartoon characters of themselves. What’s that called? Oh yeah. Personal branding. Be more than a brand.

By the time I learned what a Pit Bull really was, it was too late; I was already in love. Of course I'd heard the stories, but I had never put these almost mythological urban tales together with the dogs in my neighborhood. I was living in Manhattan, just blocks away from a dog park, and dog watching was a spectator sport among those of us who were still dogless. There were dogs of every shape and size, but my eye kept going to the short, stocky, exuberant dogs that seemed like cartoons. You could tell by the gleam in their eyes they felt very lucky to be here, in the city, walking with the person they kept on the other end of the leash. Their heads were blocky and human. Their short coats made it seem like they were wearing costumes made of felt. It wasn't hard to imagine there might be a little person inside. And they were everywhere that there were people: in cafes, outside bodegas, eating at restaurants.

I used to love Bugs Bunny cartoons as a kid. Wascally wabbit. Hated the Coyote though. Really hated the Road Runner. That was some pointless desert bullshit.

I begin each morning by picturing a heart—like a red cartoon heart. And I train my mind on the reality of God’s unconditional love for me. For all people, for everything that he’s created. When my mind wanders, I gently pull it back to the heart, like a kindergartener would make for Valentine’s Day—bright and simple. Over time, the heart began to cover the darkness.

Q: Who are your influences? I was lucky as a kid to get to meet Paul Conrad who lived in my hometown. He is a giant in editorial cartooning, winner of three Pulitzers and even more impressively he won a place on Nixon‘s enemies list. He was a huge influence. Starting out I also spent a lot of time looking at Ron Cobb, an insane crosshatcher who drew for the alternative press in the ’60’s, as well as David Levine, Ed Sorel, and R. Crumb. I also love Steinberg‘s visual elegance and innately whimsical voice. Red Grooms is another guy who took cartooning wonderful places. There are also a number of 19th-century cartoonists whose mad drawing skills and ability to create rich visual worlds always impressed me. A.B. Frost, T.S. Sullivant, Joseph Keppler are often overshadowed by Nast, but in many ways they were more adventurous graphically. I also want to throw in here how great it is to work in D.C. There’s a great circle of cartoonists here and being in their orbit is a daily inspiration. Opening the Post to Toles and Richard Thompson (Richard’s Poor Almanac is the best and most original cartoon in the country and sadly known mostly only to those lucky enough to be in range of the Post;, Cul de Sac is pretty good too). And then there’s Ann Telnaes’ animations that appear in the Post online—-truly inspired and the wave of the future, as well as Beeler, Galifianakis, Bill Brown, and others. It raises one’s game to be around all these folks. (2010 interview with Washington City Paper)

The first time I attended an Anglican church, the most surprising part of the service was when they lifted the physical book of the Bible into the air and carried it down the aisle. People turned and bowed their heads as it moved past them. Their reverence for Scripture captivated my imagination. I had taken for granted that I could hold the Bible in my hands at home, fall asleep reading it in bed. Growing up, some of my friends had Bibles decorated with cartoons. But there, the people of God stood for the processon of the Bible. They stood for the reading of the Word. I felt as thought I had been pulled back in time to when Ezra read the law to the returning Israelites, and they all stood to hear it. Going back to Christianity’s Jewish roots, the Torah was carried with worshipers all around it. The people stood for the procession of the sacred word. Jews kissed —and some still kiss—the sacred book when they opened it and closed it. If the scroll of the Torah became unusable, they would bury it like a loved one rather than destroy it. The word of God was central to their worship, their culture, their very identity. (p. 12)

WITH THE ADVENT of the computer and the dawn of the space race, the sixties brought futuristic visions of life to the mainstream consciousness. The Soviet satellite Sputnik had led to the formation of NASA to oversee America’s space program. In prime time on ABC, Americans could tune in to catch the animated cartoon The Jetsons, about a space-age family who lived with their housekeeping robot, Rosie, and dog, Astro. A couple of years later, Desilu, I Love Lucy’s production company, premiered Star Trek on CBS. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey had a near-omniscient computer named Hal manipulating its astronauts. By the midsixties, the concepts of artificial intelligence and self-driving cars were no longer in the realm of magic or science fiction—they were seen as the logical, inevitable outcome of the American trajectory.

The Soviet satellite Sputnik had led to the formation of NASA to oversee America’s space program. In prime time on ABC, Americans could tune in to catch the animated cartoon The Jetsons, about a space-age family who lived with their housekeeping robot, Rosie, and dog, Astro. A couple of years later, Desilu, I Love Lucy’s production company, premiered Star Trek on CBS. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey had a near-omniscient computer named Hal manipulating its astronauts. By the midsixties, the concepts of artificial intelligence and self-driving cars were no longer in the realm of magic or science fiction—they were seen as the logical, inevitable outcome of the American trajectory.

I thought about a game we loved to play called The Heavenly City. All the kids would design our mansions in Heaven, the ultimate reward we were told we'd be granted in exchange for all the deprivations and pain during our lives on Earth. Different kids had different dreams: Many wanted a house all to themselves, all the food they could imagine. And typical kid desires too: pets, toys, candy. All the things we never had. But not me. I didn't care about streets of gold or all the clothes in the world, or the real jewelry that Dorothea and the other girls fancied. I wanted books. I had a secret dream that my mansion in Heaven would be a giant library, beautiful, with tall shelves in every room, filled with every book that had ever been written. I pictured myself like the cartoon Belle, a sparkling girl with a worldly name that didn't come from anywhere in the Bible and meant beautiful, who'd been gifted the most precious thing I could imagine- the freedom to read, the ability to teach herself anything she wanted. Even though she was a prisoner in the Beast's castle, Belle had the freedom of her own mind.

I'm just a guy who loves good cartoons and, when he sees a bad one, gets a little... bit... UPSET.

wondered if the love was visible, like a big red cartoon heart over my head.

Fitness is essentially a ratio, with the numerator reflecting the success of genes in projecting copies of themselves into the future and the denominator, the success of alternative genes. Since a gene (or an individual, a population, even—in theory—a species) maximizes its success by producing the largest such ratio, it can do so either by reducing the denominator or increasing the numerator. Most creatures, most of the time, find it easier to do the latter than the former, which is why living things generally are more concerned with feathering their nests than de-feathering those of others. Because of natural selection, human beings have a capacity to be peaceful and warlike, cooperative and competitive, loving and violent . . . depending upon conditions. Those conditions include but are not limited to the amount and nature of resources available (such as food, mates, living and breeding space), the nature of social expectation, cultural traditions and indoctrination, degree of embeddedness among kin and other reciprocating individuals, and so forth. Like the proverbial cartoon in which both an angel and a devil perch upon each person’s shoulder, whispering in her ears and vying for attention, our evolutionary heritage offers different routes for future behavior, without necessarily predisposing us in any one direction. Although it is definitely worthwhile to interrogate our evolutionary background for indications as to our predilections, the answer leads us to Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous formulation that human beings are “condemned to be free.” Whether devotees of peace choose to be relieved to learn that we are not biologically obliged to war, or to be distraught that by the same token, we are not unilaterally predisposed, through our biology, to peace, we are all stuck with an obligation (if not necessarily a predisposition) to respond to Sartre’s simple, daunting, existentialist challenge: “You are free. Choose.

We were standing in the yard a month ago. One of the last leaves came off the maple. So I picked it up and made him look very closely and carefully at it. I made him see it. Then I asked him what it was worth, without cracking a smile. I could almost see the light bulb going on in the air over his head, like cartoons. Then, bless you, I fed him that speech you made a lifetime ago on Sanibel Island. If there was one sunset every twenty years, how would people react to them? If there were ten seashells in all the world, what would they be worth? If people could make love just once a year, how carefully would they pick their mates?

All this time, I had been led to believe that my value in a relationship was my sexuality, which was why I always behaved like a sort of cartoon nymphomaniac. I hadn't ever thought that a man could love me in the same way my friends love me; that I could love a man with the same commitment and care with which I love them.

I try again. 'Like fairy-tale love? Cartoon character with hearts floating all around him? Or a movie montage with the best song? That's what you were to him.' I'm sniffling, but I need to finish. 'You were the biggest, most impossible dream for him.