Ted Rall Quotes (37 Quotes)

Orrin Hatch was the keynote speaker at the last meeting of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. He sought me out because he was a fan. I was thinking he had confused me with someone else.

Anyway, I tried liking Jimmy Corrigan but I couldn't.

At this point, American workers are pretty respectful of the bosses they loathe.

Most people don't know how to tell stories.

I think Dilbert is actually a radical strip.

I think jazz is good, but I don't enjoy it. It's not for me.

But now that I'm cartooning full-time, I'm more of an observer. I'm talking to people who are experiencing these things. But it's not like being in the trenches.

On the ground, Pakistan is the most virulently anti-American state on the planet.

Conservative humor is frankly harder than liberal humor. You get points for just being liberal. You can get more points if you make fun of your own side sometimes.

Trying to rebuild Afghanistan on the cheap has left the country in the hands of warlords and an impotent Northern Alliance puppet regime that runs Kabul and nothing else.

It's also easier to make fun of the dominant power structure. Frankly, the time you wanted to be a conservative humorist was the 60s.

Silk Road to Ruin has all the analysis and it's structured very well. I rely on my notes more and I use direct quotes. But there's nothing like writing about it right away.

The experts who managed the original Marshall Plan say Afghanistan needs a commitment of at least $5 to $10 billion over 5 to 10 years, coupled with occupation forces of 250,000 Allied soldiers to keep the peace throughout the country.

I think Maus I is better than Maus II. The standard here is whether or not it's as good as a great book of prose literature and by that standard, no, it's not that great.

I think we're the first generation to successfully integrate American society.

Money stress is what used to remind me of my Dad most.

The word 'hero' has been bandied about a lot to refer to anyone killed in Afghanistan or Iraq. But anyone who voluntarily goes to Afghanistan or Iraq as a soldier is fighting for an evil cause under an evil commander in chief.

The best thing about being a cartoonist is to walk into a bar or someone's apartment and they don't know you, but they've taped one of your pieces up.

There was an honorable tradition of using anonymous sources that was ruined by Jayson Blair.

Up until 1995, I still had a day job that I hated. I was still personally involved in things in the 90s.

When you have birds you stare at them a lot and their eyes are recessed on their head. When they look at something they tilt their head in a quizzical expression.

It's a perfectly valid position to not like Shakespeare.

It's funny, because politically Spiegelman and I don't come from that different a place, but I view his approach as being intellectually dishonest.

I'm a better polemicist in prose.

I don't think anyone has written a great graphic novel.

Close friends love you for who you are, not what they want you to be.

Anyone should be able to read comics.

I'm a better editorial cartoonist by default because so many editorial cartoonists out there are so awful.

Comics are too big. You can't say any kind or genre of comics is better than another. You can say so subjectively. But to say it like it's objective is wrong. It's wrong morally, because it cuts out stuff that's good.

The first step to stringing the boss up from a lamppost is saying the boss is a moron.

I never consciously do any work directly influenced from any movie, unless I'm doing a parody.

When I put together a graphic novel, I don't think about literary prose. I think about storytelling.

Even though I'm a leftist. I think the left eats its own.

If I had to rank my skills, I have a long way to go before I can write a good graphic novel.

When you do a cartoon based on news headlines, you do it based on incomplete information.

I have to say that I don't find South Park very funny. It's not the politics. I always saw it as stoner animation and it just left me cold.

I used to wake up every day and think of some way he'd slighted me. Now that I've sent this thing out into the world I hardly ever think about my Dad.