Latest Matt Groening Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• The Simpsons and Futurama are such big projects, going on for years and working in different media, that everything involved with them, promotion and merchandise and online presence and all the rest, deserve to be scrutinized, so that's part of it. I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone at the core of a multimedia juggernaut, even if you might not care for the specific pop-culture invasion of your brain. The people who do it work really hard.

  Matt Groening

  People, Brain, Care

• You just have to keep in mind that the important relationship is the relationship with the audience. That's what I try to do. Everything else is secondary.

  Matt Groening

  Important Relationships, Mind, Trying

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, www.avclub.com. April 26, 2006.

• I have to say that The Simpsons comes from a huge number of great writers headed by Al Jean, the show-runner, and the work that they do is really fantastic. It's a blast just to sit around with them in the writers' room and listen to all the filthy jokes that will never get on the air.

  Matt Groening

  Air, Numbers, Als

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, www.avclub.com. April 26, 2006.

• I think human beings probably resonate with audiences more than bunnies, but who knows?

  Matt Groening

  Thinking, Bunnies, Audience

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, tv.avclub.com. April 26, 2006.

• I think in daily newspapers, the way comic strips are treated, it's as if newspaper publishers are going out of their way to kill the medium. They're printing the comics so small that most strips are just talking heads, and if you look back at the glory days of comic strips, you can see that they were showcases for some of the best pop art ever to come out.

  Matt Groening

  Art, Thinking, Talking

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, www.avclub.com. April 26, 2006.

• I would prefer to listen to a French classical composer like Olivier Messiaen than to the pop hits of the day.

  Matt Groening

  Pops, Composer, Classical Composers

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, www.avclub.com. April 26, 2006.

• I've been deadline-driven for my whole grown-up life, and that hasn't gone away. It is nice to be able to reflect about the big picture, about what kind of stories you want to tell, and how to take advantage of success.

  Matt Groening

  Nice, Gone Away, Stories

  Interview with Kyle Ryan, tv.avclub.com. March 25, 2009.

• Humor does depend on surprise, and the things that people remember as the funniest things in the world, you look at later and you go, "What? What was that all about?"

  Matt Groening

  People, Doe, Looks

  Interview with Kyle Ryan, www.avclub.com. March 25, 2009.

• Anxiety and hostility seem to be a great part of good and bad humor. Examining humor too closely does seem to destroy it.

  Matt Groening

  Anxiety, Doe, Good And Bad

  Interview with Kyle Ryan, www.avclub.com. March 25, 2009.

• I think people who work in comedy and humor are hesitant to analyze it too much, because you feel like if you take it apart, you'll break it and not be able to put it back together again.

  Matt Groening

  Thinking, Together Again, People

  Interview with Kyle Ryan, www.avclub.com. March 25, 2009.

• One of the great things about the Internet is that you can read what everybody has to say about everything. It is fascinating to me, the critiques about humor by people who have no sense of humor.

  Matt Groening

  People, Sense Of Humor, Internet

  Interview with Kyle Ryan, tv.avclub.com. March 25, 2009.

• I personally like the idea of newspapers. It's a good format. You can read it in whatever order you want. You can glance at it. There is something about a single screen and scrolling through pages that just doesn't have the same appeal.

  Matt Groening

  Order, Ideas, Want

  Interview with Kyle Ryan, www.avclub.com. March 25, 2009.

• I'm a fan of animation and so, the more stuff that doesn't look like the other stuff that's out there, I'm in favor.

  Matt Groening

  Fans, Looks, Favors

  "Matt Groening looks to the future". Interview with Todd Leopold, www.cnn.com. February 26, 2009.

• I always thought that television was the way to go in my goal to invade pop culture because it got to towns in which there were no bookstores. That's how I used to think of it: How do I reach kids who not only don't read but probably have no access to much in the way of books?

  Matt Groening

  Book, Kids, Thinking

  "Matt Groening looks to the future". Interview with Todd Leopold, www.cnn.com. February 26, 2009.

• A lot of American shows don't last for as long as 12 episodes. They get cut after one. But certainly one of the great things about The Office in particular was that there was a beginning, a middle and an end.

  Matt Groening

  Cutting, Office, Long

  "Ricky Gervais goes to Springfield". Interview with Brian Viner, www.independent.co.uk. April 14, 2006.