I grew up in Los Angeles and always wished I'd spent a childhood in a far different place.

- Berkeley Breathed

I happen to think nearly everybody - especially those one might find in the odd issue of 'People' magazine, including me - is frightfully boring, Especially me. And Tom Cruise. Tom and I are alike in only this way.

- Berkeley Breathed

The comic page is dying; I didn't want to go with it.

- Berkeley Breathed

My post-child period resulted in one instant change: I write shorter books for kids.

- Berkeley Breathed

Keep in mind that in 1985, I had a potential readership of over 50 million Americans. At that time, a good portion of those were under 30.

- Berkeley Breathed

It was a huge challenge to learn digital painting well enough so that computers don't pop into mind when one sees one.

- Berkeley Breathed

I started as a news photographer at the University Of Texas' Daily Texan.

- Berkeley Breathed

'Harry Potter' shouldn't be children's first experience with suspense and plot turns.

- Berkeley Breathed

Doonesbury had the requisite and overwhelming influence in 1980, as it did on any college cartoonist who was paying attention, of course.

- Berkeley Breathed

Such is the nature of comic strips. Once established, their half-life is usually more than nuclear waste. Typically, the end result is lazy, rich cartoonists.

- Berkeley Breathed

Negative humor is forgotten immediately. It's the stuff that makes us feel better about our lives that lives long. Much more satisfying. Enter children's books.

- Berkeley Breathed

Some of us find our lives abridged even before the paperback comes out.

- Berkeley Breathed

If nothing is serious anymore, then there's nothing to satirize.

- Berkeley Breathed

If I could have drawn a cat yelling for lasagna every day for 15 years and have them pay me $30 million to do so, I would have.

- Berkeley Breathed

Despite what they tell you, there are simply no moral absolutes in a complex world.

- Berkeley Breathed

And that's why any of my picture books exist: They all seem to be built backwards from a simple, emotionally optimistic story beat.

- Berkeley Breathed

I'll confess right here that I secretly wish I'd have drawn a strip about a little boy with a fake tiger, going for adventures throughout the universe in spaceships of his imagination.

- Berkeley Breathed

I knew 'Mars Needs Moms! ' would be a movie seconds after the title came to mind. Similarly, I also knew that my daughter would be calling me a dork as a default term of endearment eventually.

- Berkeley Breathed

I can say that even in the midst of my most cynical comic stripping: Opus shone through with a bit of heart, anchoring the ugly proceedings with a comforting pull of emotion.

- Berkeley Breathed

I ignore Hallmark Holidays. And this comes from a guy who has sold a million Opus greeting cards.

- Berkeley Breathed