Harvey Pekar Quotes

Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.

I'm sure someone out there has a workable solution. But what do I know? I make comic books and write about jazz. I do know the difference between right and wrong, though.

I write scripts in storyboard fashion using stick figures, and thought balloons and word balloons and captions. Then I'll write descriptions of what scenes should look like and turn it over to the artist

I met Robert Crumb in 1962; he lived in Cleveland for a while. I took a look at his stuff. Crumb was doing stuff beyond what other writers and artists were doing. It was a step beyond Mad.

I really don't have a lot in common with the people who attend the Comic Con. It's like assuming that all people who write prose are the same.

I'd been familiar with comics, and I'd collected 'em when I was a kid, but after I got into junior high school, there wasn't much I was interested in

Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.

I felt more alone that week than any. Sometimes I'd feel a body lying next to me like an amputee feels a phantom limb. All I did was think about Jennie Gerhardt and Alice Quinn and all the decades of people I had known. The more I thought, the more I felt like crying. Life seemed so sweet and so sad, and so hard to let go of in the end. But hey, man, every day is a brand new deal, right? Just keep on working and something's bound to turn up.

Since about 1980 Kenny Werner has been one of jazz’s unsung heroes

I think that the so-called average person often exhibits a great deal of heroism in getting through an ordinary day . . .

Am I a guy who writes about himself in a comic book, or am I just a character in that book? If I die, will that character keep going, or will he just fade away?

As a matter of fact, I deliberately look for the mundane, because I feel these stories are ignored. The most influential things that happen to virtually all of us are the things that happen on a daily basis. Not the traumas.

It seemed to me you could do anything in comics. So I started doing my thing, which is mainly influenced by novelists, stand-up comedians, that sort of thing

Life is about women, gigs, an' bein' creative.

I realize that I'm pretty flawed, but you know - I haven't killed anybody yet.

I just continue to be kind of disappointed that people don't realize that and try and diversify the kind of work they are doing in comics.

American Splendor is just an ongoing journal. It's an ongoing autobiography. I started it when I was in my early 30s, and I just keep going.

I'm doing research for a large comic book on the Beat Generation guys - Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and those guys

I've probably had my day in the sun. I think I've influenced a lot of comic book writers

I thought I had a great opportunity when I started doing my comic book in 1972. I thought there was so much territory to work in.

I decided I was going to tell these stories. I went around and met Crumb. He was the cartoonist. I started realizing comics weren't just kid stuff.

I try and write the way things happen. I don't try and fulfill people's wishes

I always wanted praise and I always wanted attention; I won't lie to you. I was a jazz critic and that wasn't good enough for me. I wanted people to write about me, not me about them. So I thought, What could I do? I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't act or anything like that. OK, I can write.

Even a pretty traditional comic book writer can make valuable contributions to the Internet.

Im pretty aggressive, and maybe obnoxious, about trying to get work.

It didnt take long to establish myself, as far as people thinking my work was good. They liked it from the start.

Misery loves company. There's a lot to that.

You do not pursue potential conflict unless you hold power over your foe.

People will believe absurd things - in the 19th century and now.

I wanted to write literature that pushed people into their lives rather than helping people escape from them.

I think you can do anything with comics that you could do in just about any art form.

There was a survey done a few years ago that affected me greatly. it was discovered that intelligent people either estimate their intelligence accurately or slightly underestimate themselves, but stupid people overestimate their intelligence and by huge margins. (And these were things like straight up math tests, not controversial IQ tests.)

I don't write about certain arguments I have with my wife. I'd get my head torn off if wrote about certain things.

I'm a guy that likes to sit in one place

It makes you feel good to know that there's other people afflicted like you.

It's the stuff that happens right in front of your face when there's no routine and everything is unexpected. That's what I want to write about.

I don't think I made any really big mistakes; it's just that I chose something difficult to do. Looking back, I suppose I should be grateful that I got as far as I got.

When you're dead, it robs life of many of it's pleasures

Everybody's like everybody else, and everybody's different from everybody else.

Every ethnic group thinks they are the chosen ones.

My parents' work ethic amazed me. How could they put in such long hours, day after day? Part of the reason was to keep the family going - to keep me going. I realized that, although we had different values derived from different cultures and wouldn't agree on certain issues, they were good people, incredible people, and I loved and respected them.

And no business can possibly equate happy workers (community) with profit (effectiveness). Happy workers are much more productive workers and hence contribute to profit, but no organization is formed for the idea of pleasing its employees.

People who are readers of fiction aren't particularly interested in comic books.

I think comics have far more potential than a lot of people realize.

I think you can find all the elements that you can find in great literature in mundane experiences.

I think the people who would be the least interested in my work would be people who read lots of comic books.

It's extremely seldom that anybody wants me to change what I've written about them. Generally I portray them in a good light, if they're friends