Latest Robert Mankoff Quotes from Interviews

• We have to know cognitively what another mind is thinking and also empathically what they're feeling. And of course, in general, that's always the case, but it's often very generic. Like with Leo Cullum's doctor, it's just the fact that people in general are cruel and insensitive. But in the Barbara Smaller cartoon, we understand it's this particular person or this specific sub-class of person and her particular needs and desires, and that's different than a pun cartoon in which it's just semantic.

  Robert Mankoff

  Thinking, People, Feelings

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• I think The New Yorker's cartoons aren't very political because the people who do the cartoons aren't awfully political people, and they aren't paid to be political. I think editorial cartoonists are. That's what they do. They probably have a great natural interest in politics, and then they are paid to do it, so they sort of have to hunt out these ideas. I admire editorial cartoons, but I'm also sort of happy that I don't do them because I'd hate to have to label things and I'd especially hate, more than anything, to label something Dennis Hastert or Mark Foley.

  Robert Mankoff

  Hate, Thinking, People

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• There's usually nothing in a guy's joke in which we have to understand what's going on in someone else's mind.

  Robert Mankoff

  Mind, Jokes

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• There's all kinds of theories among the cartoonists: start with funniest, end with funniest.

  Robert Mankoff

  Kind, All Kinds, Cartoonist

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• The ability to be funny is pretty widespread in the population.

  Robert Mankoff

  Ability

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• I'm making fun of myself and I think I'm making fun of all men in our desperate, desperate attempt to understand the people we're with and hopefully through humor have them understand us.

  Robert Mankoff

  Fun, Men, Thinking

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with David Bianculli, www.npr.org. December 4, 2015.

• I do find that humor helps in relationships. It certainly helps in my marriage now because I'm a very, very fallible person. And if I wasn't funny I'd be kicked right out the door.

  Robert Mankoff

  Doors, Helping, Persons

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with David Bianculli, www.npr.org. December 4, 2015.

• Humor is basically a cognitive process. And it's a creative process not only on the part of the cartoonist but on the part of the viewer.

  Robert Mankoff

  Creative, Process, Cartoonist

  Source: www.npr.org

• I have been married three times and it just keeps better and better, but I'm going to stop here.

  Robert Mankoff

  Three, Married, Three Times

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with David Bianculli, keranews.org. December 4, 2015.

• I think what Jewish culture taught me and what the - and Jewish culture now is everyone's culture - is all these embarrassing things, all these guilt-filled things, all these anxiety filled things are material.

  Robert Mankoff

  Thinking, Anxiety, Guilt

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. March 24, 2014.

• I'm really interested in the link between creativity and humor because humor is a type of creativity, and I do think that humorous people and humorous health helps creativity.

  Robert Mankoff

  Humorous, Creativity, Thinking

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. December 4, 2015.

• I know everybody wants humor to be subversive and speak truth to power. I don't think power's been listening, incidentally.

  Robert Mankoff

  Thinking, Listening, Want

  "New Yorker Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with David Bianculli, www.npr.org. December 29, 2014.

• None of the cartoons that I ever did are basically, if they're about sex, they're about sex in sort of this, you know, this ironic way, or the way that people actually treat it.

  Robert Mankoff

  Sex, People, Ironic

  Source: www.npr.org

• The generations that were exposed to sitcom have the people actually saying the line, saying the joke, whereas sort of before that you have much more observational humor.

  Robert Mankoff

  People, Generations, Lines

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. March 24, 2014.

• When you look back at the older cartoons, they're very much more observational cartoons. And the cartoon, the people in the cartoons are not making the joke.

  Robert Mankoff

  People, Cartoon, Looks

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. March 24, 2014.

• I have a cartoon where the guy is pretty much, he's a regular-sized guy, but he's the size of the island. He's saying no man is an island, but I come pretty damn close.

  Robert Mankoff

  Men, Islands, Guy

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. March 24, 2014.

• A lot of what the Internet is showing is that talent is more disperse than gatekeepers such as myself...

  Robert Mankoff

  Talent, Internet, Gatekeepers

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. March 24, 2014.

• There is humor that's just whimsy, that we smile at, but the humor that we laugh at, someone has to be - someone's dignity has to be reduced.

  Robert Mankoff

  Laughing, Whimsy, Dignity

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. December 4, 2015.

• People think you get one idea for a cartoon every week, and that's not the way it works. You usually get 10 or 15, and you're - certainly when I was a cartoonist, before I was a cartoon editor, you're rushing to do what is called the batch. When I was doing that, I liked to have, in general, about 10 cartoons.

  Robert Mankoff

  Thinking, Editors, Ideas

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. March 24, 2014.

• Cartoons, often, that you do for the New Yorker don't appear for months afterwards, and the record for that is a cartoon that was bought by James Stevenson in 1987 and didn't appear until 2000.

  Robert Mankoff

  Cartoon, Records, Months

  "'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor Explores What Makes Us Get It". "Fresh Air" with David Bianculli, www.npr.org. December 4, 2015.

• Sometimes you're noodling around with a sketch and something incongruous in the drawing calls forth the caption and other times you think of a line and just have to find a place for it. A cartoon with a caption like "I don't want to live forever, but I sure as hell don't want to be dead forever either" sprang into my head and I just had to find the right venue for it which was an old couple talking to each other.

  Robert Mankoff

  Couple, Thinking, Talking

  "Ask the Author Live: Robert Mankoff on the Cartoon Issue". The New Yorker Interview, www.newyorker.com. October 21, 2011.

• The digital realm give cartoons and cartoonists more possibilities for exposure.

  Robert Mankoff

  Giving, Cartoon, Digital

  "Ask the Author Live: Robert Mankoff on the Cartoon Issue". The New Yorker Interview, www.newyorker.com. October 21, 2011.

• I've learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Why you would want to look any horse the mouth considering how infrequently they brush is beyond me.

  Robert Mankoff

  Horse, Looks, Mouths

  "Ask the Author Live: Robert Mankoff on the Cartoon Issue". The New Yorker Interview, www.newyorker.com. October 21, 2011.

• The most popular cartoon of mine is a guy on the phone looking at his appointment book and saying "No, Thursday's out. How about never, is never good for you?"

  Robert Mankoff

  Book, Phones, Guy

  "Ask the Author Live: Robert Mankoff on the Cartoon Issue". The New Yorker Interview, www.newyorker.com. October 21, 2011.

• Humor of all types is notoriously subjective. That's true not only between different people but even within an individual at different times. This subjectivity is often masked when your in a group because laughter is contagious.

  Robert Mankoff

  Laughter, People, Groups

  "Ask the Author Live: Robert Mankoff on the Cartoon Issue". The New Yorker Interview, www.newyorker.com. October 21, 2011.

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