I had such a close relationship with my dog, and my dog so filled the need in my life to have children that I just wanted Cathy to have that experience.

Animal welfare issues have always been important to me.

Defy your own group. Rebel against yourself.

I'm more financially successful, but it just means the shopping blunders I make are bigger now.

Cathy was the first widely syndicated humor strip created by a woman. The strip was pretty revolutionary at the time not only because it starred a female, but also because it was so emotionally honest about all the conflicting feelings many women had in 1976.

Because the majority of my readers are women, I feel that one public service I can provide to them is to spread the message of regular mammograms and early detection within the strip.

The biggest change in my life is that I now have to apologize for being thin.

My dog was with me all the time. I talked to my dog. She was my best buddy. I shared all my secrets with her, but I don't think I every really tried jokes out with the dog.

All parents believe their children can do the impossible. They thought it the minute we were born, and no matter how hard we've tried to prove them wrong, they all think it about us now. And the really annoying thing is, they're probably right.

Every time I get something under control in my own life, the world provides more material.

The specifics of Cathy?s and my life are different now, but the basic life challenges are exactly the same.

Otherwise, my whole career has just been flinging myself at whatever is most overdue first and letting everything else stack up.

Food, love, career, and mothers, the four major guilt groups.

I never thought Cathy would get married in the comic strip. And I also thought I would never get married.

I have an office in my house and one about five minutes from my house. I worked solely out of my house for many years, but find, with children, that I have to be in a different ZIP code to think.

I'd love to see more equal representation of female and male cartoonists on the comics page.

I'm married, which means that instead of occasionally wondering about men from afar, I actually live with one and can be constantly astounded by the strange male brain.

In 1976 I wrote a lot about women trying to claim the right to work.

Mothers send strips to daughters to make a point. Daughters smack strips down on the breakfast table to make a point. My own mom sometimes cuts a strip out and sends it to me to make sure I understand her.

I had such a close relationship with my dog, and my dog so filled the need in my life to have children that I just wanted Cathy to have that experience.

I'm most proud of having created something that men never completely get.

My mother had always taught me to write about my feelings instead of sharing really personal things with others, so I spent many evenings writing in my diary, eating everything in the kitchen and waiting for Mr. Wrong to call.

I'm lucky that my real-life Mom has both a great sense of humor about herself and an amazing ability to slip into complete denial if the subject matter gets a little too close to home.

The specific story line that people have responded to the most has been the horror of bathing suit shopping.

A lot of married people certainly have wonderful relationships with their dogs, but when you're single and your dog is the only other living thing in your house, it's a really special relationship which I wanted CATHY to have.

The relationship between Cathy and Mom in the strip is the one relationship drawn from real life that I have proudly never even tried to disguise.

Imagine my surprise when, after a lifetime of teaching me to keep personal things to myself, Mom insisted my drawings were the start of a comic strip for millions of people to enjoy.

Cartooning is a wonderful career, and I'd like more women to get to have it. I can't think of any reason why we won't see more syndicated female cartoonists in the future.

I wanted Cathy and Irving to actually say 'I do' and be pronounced husband and wife on Feb. 5, which is my mom's birthday.

The specifics of Cathy's and my life are different now, but the basic life challenges are exactly the same.

A young bride can put on makeup at 6 in the morning and look fabulous at midnight.

When life gives you lemons squirt someone in the eye.

All mothers have intuition. The great ones have radar.

Corporate partners help UNICEF fund our programmes for children, advocate with us on their behalf, or facilitate our work through logistical, technical, research or supply support.

Bambi has a profound effect on children because it's about losing your mother.

I love children and I love men, but I can't commit to either for the rest of my life.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

I'm not up on today's television for children, because it's mostly cartoons that don't seem to interest me.

When I see children, I see the face of God. That's why I love them so much. That's what I see.

We have three cats. It's like having children, but there is no tuition involved.

Instead of needing lots of children, we need high-quality children.

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

Fiction came quite a while later. I began with short stories and fiction for children.

A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and send their children to school with it.

Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

I believe very firmly that gay people of every stripe and age should be role models for all children, and that means interacting with them.

In fact I have nightmares about having children. I want to carry a baby and feel the life within me and in my dream, I do. But every time after it's born, there's this incredible fear, this pounding pulse of fear. It's a real bad nightmare.