Bruce Eric Kaplan Quotes

“As an adult, it's hard for me to remember my mother before her sickness. But if I go back into childhood, I can access that.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“It's not like during your normal day, anyone says, 'How do having meaning in your life? How do you make meaning in your life?'”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“Actually, I think that 'Seinfeld' tackles the same kinds of issues as 'Six Feet Under,' just in a different way.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“Graduation speeches force you to reflect. They are about consciousness. Nothing is better than consciousness.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I actually thought, like, I was sure 'Get Smart' and, like, 'James Bond' movies, I was sure that that's what real life was like.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I can't get enough of self-help books of all kinds.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I go through my day remembering things like telephone cords.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

I had always wanted to do a collection of cartoons, but you have to wait until someone is actually interested.

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I love graduation speeches. I have always loved them; I will always love them.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I loved Charles Addams more than anything. Still love him.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

I started doing a Twitter feed when my father was dying. I was very distracted, preoccupied. It was upsetting.

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I used cartoons as diaries. I still do. They're my way of figuring out the world, what's happening to me or what I'm thinking about.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I was trying to be a writer, and I was kind of getting sidetracked, so I started doing cartoons as a form of expression.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

I'm continually working on myself. Nothing ever actually works.

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I've had to whine for everything I've ever really wanted.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I've sat through boring speeches; didn't get up and leave.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“In New York, all the crews read 'The New Yorker.' In Los Angeles, they don't know from 'The New Yorker.'”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“In television writing, you want to hear what the characters say as opposed to giving them something to say. It's the same with the cartoons.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“It's self-soothing for me to draw. So if I'm upset, drawing makes me less upset.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

My father would often start to say something, then say 'Forget it.'

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“My mother always bought our birthday gifts.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“No, I never - no one ever - I never learned anything when I was a kid. Honestly, my parents had nothing to tell me - like, no wisdom, nothing.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“One identity is as a television writer, which is very classically Southern California, but another of my personae is as a New Yorker cartoonist.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“Shooting in Los Angeles is always pleasant and comfortable. Shooting in New York is like being on 'Survivor.'”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

Sometimes I'll be reading something online and just get so frustrated because of what people are saying.

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“Traditionally, the only way I come up with cartoons is by sitting at my desk and thinking.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“We are all just little dolls of ourselves. Who occasionally pull back the curtains to reveal the real us.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“We only got clothing once a year, like, right before school began. It's like, that's when you got your clothing.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“When I was a kid, and I was watching TV, I just loved it so much that I wanted to crawl into that TV.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“When I was a kid, I would be watching TV shows like, you know, like 'Get Smart' and be like, 'That's what being an adult is.'”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“All I can really tell you about my father is that he did odd things like put tin foil on a bottle of beer after having a few sips, then put it in the refrigerator to perhaps have on another night.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I am assuming my father learned at an early age that there is nothing more dangerous than showing your true self. I think a lot of us learn that, and it actually may be true.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I never really got into 'The Munsters' that much, but there was one aspect that was compelling. That was Marilyn. She was the only normal one among this group of creatures.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I read the 'New Yorker' when I was a kid. I used to love the cartoons and pick the cartoons out of the library, so I felt I knew the world of their cartoons.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I started trying to be a writer and failed for years. I tried novels, short stories, sitcoms, movies, plays, anything. And then, to support myself, I had millions of jobs on the fringes of show business.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I thought about trying to do a strip. I even tried to do it, but I felt I didn't have the voice. Even though I liked that form, I didn't think I thought in the form of the three panels.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“I've had mostly book parties, where I get very focused on inviting everyone and not forgetting anyone, although of course one always does, and being worried no one will show up, but mostly the book comes from going to parties and feeling very, for lack of a better word, anxious.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“In L.A., you can put out a craft-service table anywhere, and it's no big deal. But in New York, people who walk by it on the street get really angry about it.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“In Los Angeles, it's always nice out. In New York, it can be nice out or horrifying. You really have no idea what you're going to get on any given day.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“In many ways, cartooning is my therapy. I've always said they're like my diaries. It's thoughts and feelings and things I've seen on any particular day.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

It was memorable the first time 'The New Yorker' bought a cartoon from me. I had been sending them batches for years every week, and they didn't respond to them.

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“James Thurber was an inspiration because his drawings were so primitive. I am self-taught - I didn't go to art school - so I thought when I started doing them, 'If James Thurber can be a cartoonist, I can,' because his stuff is very raw.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“My cartoon life is in my office, and it's very separate and getting very in my own head. My television life is I'm begging one of the actors to say the line in the way I'd like them to.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“My mother couldn't take having three boys. She was extremely jumpy, to say the least. Any noise startled her. The sound of a pot dropping on the ground could make her hit the ceiling.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“Of course I loved 'I Love Lucy' and saw every episode over and over again. I found it heartbreaking that Ricky got to be famous and have an exciting life at the Tropicana while Lucy was stuck in that terrible apartment with the Mertzes.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“One quintessential moment in time is when you're 22, when you graduate college. And then another quintessential time is as a middle-age man. That's the convergence.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“There was never any butter in our home. Just margarine. My parents acted like butter was lethal. I don't think I ever saw either one have a piece of butter. I would go over to friends' houses and down sticks of butter.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“What I like about graduation speeches is that they're an opportunity for someone to make sense of their life and to impart that wisdom to someone else. It's like a sanctioned self-help moment.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

When I'm on the set, I'll come up with ideas if I'm sort of just between responsibilities, because there's a lot of sitting around on set. Invariably, though, the stuff I come up with on the set tends to be bad.

— Bruce Eric Kaplan

“Yes, the people I draw don't have a wide variety of looks. Every now and then I'll spruce it up, like a woman will be wearing a two-piece suit as opposed to a one-piece, or a man will not be wearing a tie; he'll just have a collar.”

— Bruce Eric Kaplan