Stephen Hillenburg Quotes

I was thinking about what would it be, what would the characters be like, and it just suddenly dawned on me that, hey, nobody is doing an underseas show. So I started drawing these weird invertebrate animals, various characters like crawfish and starfish and squids and sponge.

In 'Space Dandy,' I'm trying to challenge myself and do stuff I haven't done before. I'm aiming for a really funny, cool, and crazy creation.

In my opinion, animation will continue to thrive as long as there are children, parents, television, movies and the need to laugh.

You know, he would go and look at different funny books because he wanted his character to be different and make different faces. I saw a funny book in his room and it looked like the same character he was playing. It was about a duck.

Twentysomethings thank me for their childhood... SpongeBob lives at the bottom of the sea, but he brings a lot of great stuff to the surface.

A good comic explores the imagination, but it's always got to have those notes of truth running through it.

All cartoonists are geniuses, but Arnold Roth is especially so.

I've made myself laugh from some ideas - but I've never scared myself.

I put the storyboard down and came back to it like two weeks later and saw that I had written 'Butt-Head' next to the picture, and it kind of made me laugh and I thought, Well, might as well go for every laugh you can get.

I do as much comedy as I possibly can, but I'm basically limited by the imagination of the secretaries who make the decisions.

I can definitely say that of all my friends who I consider to be really great cartoonists, we're all trying to aim at basically the same thing, which is an ever closer representation of what it feels like to be alive.

Big picture, it's amazing to create characters and see them brought to life in the art. And to love that art. But I especially enjoy writing a character with heightened powers that aren't especially useful to him.

I never write anything without humor, just because I like humor, but at the same time, it is a way for anything fantastical to become relatable.

I'm good at coming up with wacky characters and funny dialogue.

I'm probably not very funny. The scripts just don't come in, or the ones that do aren't that good. I suppose I'm just an old drama queen, really.

People may think I'm trying something new by telling stories, but they're just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That's what I do.

Animation is very similar to sketch comedy: you have a short amount of time to do something big and ridiculous and funny.

You have to think of a new way to make something new. And the biggest sin - you can never try too hard. You can never look like you're just trying to shock people, 'cause that's simple. But making people laugh is the hard part.

Since I was a kid, I've always been obsessed with animation.

'The Ugly Truth' isn't trying to change the world with strong political opinions; it's just trying to entertain you with thoughts and ideas from my crazy mind!

I look like Scooby-Doo in a beard.

I eventually thought of SpongeBob, but he needed a last name - SquarePants came to mind.

If I could do a sort of comical musical, that would be everything!

Ghibli is about craftsmanship. They draw characters and put life in it.

Between 'Futurama' and 'Simpsons,' I'm able to work with the voices of Michael Jackson, Dustin Hoffman, and the cast of 'Star Trek.' It's great, you know; it's great to work with such talented people.