Quotes from Joseph Barbera


Sorted by Popularity


I cannot say who, precisely, came up with the idea of a Stone Age family.


There is no law that says a man who earned a hundred million dollars in his first half-dozen years on the job has to be a decent human being, but Mike Eisner is that and more.


My biggest kick comes from the individual fans I run into. Middle-aged men ask me when we're going to do more Johnny Quest cartoons.


I hate fishing, and I can't imagine why anyone would want to hike when you can get in the car and drive.


Friends don't necessarily made good business or creative partners.


What about Mickey Mouse? Disney tried very hard to make him a star. But Mickey Mouse is more of a symbol than a real character.


Publicity gets more than a little tiring. You want it, you need it, you crave it, and you're scared as hell when it stops.


My marriage had been impulsive. That marriage should have been short-lived instead of the 23 years it spanned.


Los Angeles was an impression of failure, of disappointment, of despair, and of oddly makeshift lives. This is California? I thought.


I was 82 years old before Who's Who thought I was enough of a big shot to do a piece on me.


I hope we don't get to the point where we have to have the cat stop chasing the mouse to teach him glassblowing and basket weaving.


Faced with the choice of enduring a bad toothache or going to the dentist, we generally tried to ride out the bad tooth.


Making cartoons means very hard work at every step of the way, but creating a successful cartoon character is the hardest work of all.


After I had done a handful of cartoons I was satisfied with, I started submitting them to the magazines.


My last days at MGM were like the fall of the Roman Empire in fast motion.


Despite the rejection, and in violation of all the rules, I came back year after year.


While I have never been a regular churchgoer, I'm anything but immune to the power and the majesty of the religious experience.


In those days, boxing was very glamorous and romantic. You listened to fights on the radio, and a good announcer made it seem like a contest between gladiators.


That's what keeps me going: dreaming, inventing, then hoping and dreaming some more in order to keep dreaming.


Bill Hanna and I owe an awful lot to television, but we both got our start and built the first phase of our partnership in the movies.