Jules Feiffer

Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist and author, who was considered the most widely read satirist in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 as America's leading editorial cartoonist, and in 2004 he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. He wrote the animated short, Munro, which won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1961. The Library of Congress has recognized his "remarkable legacy", from 1946 to the present, as a...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCartoonist
Date of Birth26 January 1929
CityBronx, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I grew up to have my father's looks- my father's speech patterns-my father's posture- my father's opinions and my mother's contempt for my father
I've backed off cliffs all of my career. The best things I've done I've backed into. I never understood what I was getting into, I never started out to be a political cartoonist. There wasn't this kind of cartoonist when I started. I wanted to do traditional strips in the newspapers and backed into what I did then and backed into writing plays and backed into children's books. And what I'll back into next, I don't know, but I'll be looking forward to going backward.
I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy. Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy. I was deprived. (Oh not deprived but rather underprivileged.) Then they told me that underprivileged was overused. I was disadvantaged. I still don't have a dime. But I have a great vocabulary.
There's no rap against comics that isn't true. They were sexist, they were racist, you name it - and they kind of gloried in that.
There's some brain damage, but it may be that very brain damage that allows me to do the work I do.
I think we overrate experience and what we've been through in terms of our success at doing the work we do. There are many people who get beat up, who suffer, who are victimized, and then they sit down to write and they write crap.
I'm well beyond dyslexic: I have no sense of direction; I never know where I am.
I've never met a cartoonist who isn't quirky or weird in some ways.
It is not size or age that separates children from adults. It is responsibility.
Jesus died to forgive our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?
Getting out of bed in the morning is an act of false confidence.
At sixteen I was stupid, confused and indecisive. At twenty-five I was wise, self-confident, prepossessing and assertive. At forty-five I am stupid, confused, insecure and indecisive. Who would have supposed that maturity is only a short break in adolescence?
Good swiping is an art in itself.
If you are not able to communicate successfully between yourself and yourself, how are you supposed to make it with the strangers outside?