Category: Friday Quote

To pull books from a school library because of the discomfort they create in adults is a recipe for disaster. It erodes the trust young people have in the adults in their lives and pushes them to secrecy. It undermines the studied opinion of professional librarians and educators. It supports the false idea that there is one version of life that is acceptable. And it denigrates the work of authors who are brave enough to name experiences that are difficult and real.

I’m putting this one up as an “opposing view” on the books in libraries debate.

School socialization is based on an expectation of obedience, compliance, and conformity. It was about rule following. Learning was secondary. Exuberance was a liability.

People try to look for deep meanings in my work. I want to say “They’re just cartoons, folks. You laugh or you don’t.” Gee, I sound shallow. But I don’t react to current events or other stimuli. I don’t read or watch TV to get ideas. My work is basically sitting down at the drawing table and getting silly.

Don’t let people convince you that principles only matter when the outcome is in your favor. Principles matter especially, and really only when the outcome is not in your favor.

A strong marriage rarely has two strong people at the same time. It is a husband and wife who take turns being strong for each other in the moments when the other feels weak.

This week I celebrate four years being married to the most wonderful woman in the world.

Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself.

What Marx observed was that capital tended to accumulate in the hands of fewer and fewer people. And he said that’s a flaw of the capitalist system.

That’s wrong. It’s not the flaw of the capitalist system. It’s a feature of every single system that we know of no matter who set it up and how it operates.