Gary Larson Quotes

Being able to draw means being able to put things in believable space. People who don't draw very well can't do that.

Drawing teaches you to look at things properly and to understand form and structure.

I'm a horrible drawer. I have no artistic ability in my hands.

I have no drawing talent whatsoever. I cannot do it.

I paint what I see, not what a camera would see.

Height, width, and depth are the three phenomena which I must transfer into one plane to form the abstract surface of the picture, and thus to protect myself from the infinity of space.

Photography is a way of putting distance between myself and the work which sometimes helps me to see more clearly what it is that I have made.

Cubism is like standing at a certain point on a mountain and looking around. If you go higher, things will look different; if you go lower, again they will look different. It is a point of view.

It is by developing the individual that he is prepared for that wonderful manifestation of the human intelligence, which drawing constitutes. The ability to see reality in form, in color, in proportion, to be master of the movements of one's own hand - that is what is necessary.

I draw badly. Photography's much easier than drawing.

The artist is always concerned with a total view of the world. However, when the photographer takes a picture ... the edge of his picture is just as interesting as the middle, one can only guess at the existence of a whole, and the view presented seems chosen by chance.

What is drawing? Not once in describing the shape of the mass did I shift my eyes from the model. Why? Because I wanted to be sure that nothing evaded my grasp of it... My objective is to test to what extent my hands already feel what my eyes see.

Make yourself a master of perspective, then acquire perfect knowledge of the proportions of men and other animals.

Photography sees surfaces, it doesn't see space. We see space but the camera doesn't.

I always say I'm no different than a 19th-century landscape painter, it's just that we have these incredible tools to look at the Earth and look at the world around us differently.

Until we take how we see ourselves (and how we see others) into account, we will be unable to understand how others see and feel about themselves and their world. Unaware, we will project our intentions on their behavior and call ourselves objective.

Having success at an early age gave me more of a sense of what's important in life rather than always driving to make it.

My dad would always say, "When you look at a photo do you see yourself last?"

It's not that photography recaptures the world you have been in; more that it creates a new one: photographs are like Post-It Notes reminding us of the deep architectonic forms of space and thought.

Drawing is a kind of hypnotism: one looks in such a way at the model, that he comes and takes a seat on the paper.

All objects transmit their image to the eye in pyramids and the nearer to the eye these pyramids are intersected the smaller will the image appear of the objects which cause them.

I don't think any of my books tell the reader anything new. But they do remind, in a time that is strident and screeching about the limitations of this world and all the trouble we can get ourselves into.

If you are not skillful enough to sketch a man jumping out of a window in the time it takes him to fall from the fourth storey to the ground, you will never be able to produce great works.

Cosmic humor, especially about your own predicament, is an important part of your journey.

I have no sense of direction; I never know where I am. When I back up a car, I'm more likely to hit what's behind me than not, because I have no vision for it. I've never been able to play games or play cards because I can't in my head get the next move. I've never been able to balance a checkbook. So there's some brain damage, but it may be that very brain damage that allows me to do the work I do. I've never met a cartoonist who isn't quirky or weird in some ways.