Latest David Rees Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• The things I'm grateful for are: I had the one thing that I feel really lucky about, which is that I made something, I made art, that truly - in a weird way - truly comforted me and comforted a lot of people. And I'm really grateful that I got to have that experience.

  David Rees

  Art, Grateful, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• To me, if you're lucky enough to make stuff that people will pay money for, do a good job. Really do a good job. Especially if you're talking about real stuff, like terror atrocities and human rights abuses and pencil-sharpening techniques.

  David Rees

  Jobs, Real, Rights

  Source: therumpus.net

• I take pop culture really seriously, I think it's really important, and the stuff that I make...I don't want it to be insubstantial, even if it's about something wacky, like sharpening pencils. I feel like I owe it to myself and I owe it to people who are really interested in pencils and I owe it to anybody to do my due diligence and give them something real.

  David Rees

  Real, Thinking, Giving

  Source: therumpus.net

• The type of pop culture that is honestly very moving and powerful to me is [when artists] do their homework. They make it real.

  David Rees

  Powerful, Real, Moving

  Source: therumpus.net

• I was just worried that someone was gonna think that I had been commissioned by Jamba Juice to make cartoons about Jamba Juice. And the big thing for me was - if I'm not getting paid to sell out, I don't want people to think that I'm selling out.

  David Rees

  Thinking, People, Cartoon

  Source: therumpus.net

• The time that I would spend revisiting my old Get Your War On strips is more profitably spent Googling myself and reading comments about how people hate my pencil-sharpening business.

  David Rees

  Hate, War, Reading

  Source: therumpus.net

• I don't want to be one of these people who's like, "Man, I don't know where my ideas come from and I don't know why this works."

  David Rees

  Men, Ideas, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• I have a really analytical approach to art. And the whole idea that you can't analyze what makes a joke funny...I do not agree with that at all.

  David Rees

  Art, Ideas, Funny Jokes

  Source: therumpus.net

• I feel like really thinking about art and really appreciating it and learning the language of it just makes you more of a connoisseur. I believe that.

  David Rees

  Art, Believe, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

• The thing that was interesting to me about Relationshapes - as opposed to most of the other cartoons I've ever made - was I knew when one worked and when one didn't work, but I couldn't really explain it.

  David Rees

  Interesting, Cartoon, Made

  Source: therumpus.net

• I got to draw shapes. I really like to draw funky, geometric shapes. And I got to use just different fonts and make a joke of how feminine it was, but it didn't even have people in it. To me, it was so exciting and interesting to do that for a while.

  David Rees

  Geometric Shapes, People, Interesting

  Source: therumpus.net

• I have very limited craftsmanship. And a lot of the stuff I make plays on that.

  David Rees

  Play, Stuff, Craftsmanship

  Source: therumpus.net

• It would be amazing to tell my grandchildren, like, 'Yeah, I was paid to sharpen 1,000 pencils.'

  David Rees

  Grandchildren, Would Be, Yeah

  Source: therumpus.net

• Nobody could be a professional cartoonist, because you have to do something you don't like to do in order to be a responsible adult and pay the rent.

  David Rees

  Order, Adults, Pay

  Source: therumpus.net

• I never thought I would make a living as a pencil-sharpener. The first goal was: I don't want to lose money. And then the goal was: I want to see if 100 people buy my pencils. I just kept upping the benchmarks.

  David Rees

  People, Goal, Want

  Source: therumpus.net

• I don't think I would've ever dared dreaming of becoming a professional cartoonist. I wouldn't set myself up for that disappointment.

  David Rees

  Dream, Disappointment, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

• I hardly ever use pencils. I'm left-handed and it's really messy if you're left-handed because of the graphite smudging. I use them more now than I used to because there's, like, 15,000 pencils all over my house.

  David Rees

  House, Used, Messy

  Source: therumpus.net

• People think, "Wow, people in America have so much money, they're sending hundreds of pencils to this guy." I don't think those people realize that most people who are buying these pencils are buying them as art objects or conversation pieces.

  David Rees

  Art, Thinking, America

  Source: therumpus.net

• I've been really surprised about a lot of the negative comments about artisanal pencil sharpening. Like, it really rubs some people the wrong way.

  David Rees

  People, Negative, Way

  Source: therumpus.net

• I'd always been really intimidated by prose writing.

  David Rees

  Writing, Prose Writing, Prose

  Source: therumpus.net

• I didn't dare to dream of making money. But now of course, I've made many thousands of dollars sharpening pencils.

  David Rees

  Dream, Dollars, Making Money

  Source: therumpus.net

• The thing I hear about a lot is when people over-sharpen their pencil with a single-blade pocket-sharpener and then when they put the pencil to the page, their tip breaks and pencil points always break irregularly. It always gets all jagged and you have to refresh the point. That's a common complaint.

  David Rees

  People, Pockets, Pages

  Source: therumpus.net

• I talked to people in the pencil industry and I talked to people as I was sharpening their pencils about the frustrations they have with pencils, so I really did do my research and I do know more about pencils than most people.

  David Rees

  Frustration, People, Research

  Source: therumpus.net

• Everyone has pencils in their house, no matter how hip and contemporary they are.

  David Rees

  House, Matter, Hips

  Source: therumpus.net

• I started sharpening pencils at the census and how that was a difficult time in my life because my marriage was ending and I had quit cartooning and I didn't know what to do with myself.

  David Rees

  Difficult Times, Quitting, Census

  Source: therumpus.net