There are times when the writers ask us to improvise. Sometimes the animators are inspired by what you do, and sometimes you are inspired by what the animators do.

To many, Homer may appear lazy and a loser, but he's just much misguided. He's boorish, sure, but well meaning and, I guess, the one thing we have in common is the pursuit of lousy diets.

It's the cushiest job, but some lines are so funny that I crack up.

I've made a kind of pact with myself where I said, It doesn't matter what it is as long as I'm acting.

I often say, if I wasn't part of the show I'd be a huge fan of it.

I think that most people don't even know that I do other things. They think that Homer is all that I do.

One of my favorite episodes was the one in which Homer grew hair. That was a very unique episode, since there was a gay secretary, but that wasn't even the issue of the show-the issue was Homer's image changing because he had hair.

It's the weirdest thing. When you go into acting, you expect to be a huge star and to be recognized... It did happen, but not in the way you expect it to... In L.A., I'm just another character actor.

There are times when the writers ask us to improvise. Sometimes the animators are inspired by what you do, and sometimes you are inspired by what the animators do.

It's hard to find a play that's right for me to do. Rather than waiting around for the right script to come along, I decided to write one myself.

The Simpsons can go anywhere in the world and not worry about any budgetary issues. However, even when the show has had its run, I think the characters can go on in perpetuity.

Getting out of jury duty is easy. The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races.

Beer. Now there's a temporary solution.

I always enjoyed writing. I did playlets in high school, I did radio shows in college. That's one of the reasons I went down to Second City, because you could do acting and writing.

Don't eat me. I have a wife and kids. Eat them.

It is better to watch things then to do them.

It's a different way of getting across an emotion. You're trying to get it across to the animator because the animator is inspired by the voicetrack in terms of how to animate the character.

The nice thing is that, at least in Los Angeles, I'm known as a character actor and I do auditions for other things besides just cartoon shows.

In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

Go ahead and play the blues if it'll make you happy.

The humor is essentially dark for a cartoon and sophisticated. But at the same time, being a cartoon gives the writers more freedom than in a normal sitcom. It always pushes the line that, despite human failings, the Simpsons are really decent people.

I think the tone of the show has certainly changed over the years, because it's really, really hard to do something different when you have a show going on as long as this has.

The voice doesn't take a lot of effort now, but in the beginning it was hard to try to find a voice. The one I settled on was just easier to do for a half-hour.

Sometimes the only way you can feel good about yourself is by making someone else look bad. And I'm tired of making other people feel good about themselves.

After years of doing it, you learn the difference between your ego and your opinion. When you're married you have to cut through that.

If I were actually Homer Simpson, I'd be getting scripts out the wazoo.

The Simpsons take up so little time that I'm able to do other things as well.

Sometimes the only way you can feel good about yourself is by making someone else look bad. And Im tired of making other people feel good about themselves.

You cant keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once and move on.

For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

I belong to a specific category of writers, those who speak and write in a language different from that of their parents.

I think ethnic and regional labels are insulting to writers and really put restrictions on them. People don't think your work is quite as universal.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people - directors, filmmakers, and writers - over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.

It is certain, indeed, that the sacred writers were apt to make great allowances for people with empty stomachs, and though I am well aware that the present profane ones think this very reprehensible, I venture to agree with the sacred writers.

I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed.

Our job as writers and thinkers in the time is how to bring about the occasions that let people have that first-person experience - or the metaphoric experience that allows them to see human continuity as opposed to total threat, total willingness to do violence.

That has to remain the principal reason for doing it, doesn't it? I know it's possible to write for money, and many very good writers have done so. But for me, it has to remain the principal thing that I actually want to do the writing.

You need the words, you need the script, you need the material, you need the commitment, you need the passion, it's like we depend on writers, we depend on producers, directors depend on us and once things are in the divine order as they happen.

Apart from a few simple principles, the sound and rhythm of English prose seem to me matters where both writers and readers should trust not so much to rules as to their ears.

Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

There's a certain possessiveness of writers sometimes.

Writers are too neurotic to ever be happy.

I was notified on July 17 to be ready to start August 7 for an October air date. When we reached the screen we did not have a single segment ready. It was done so fast the writers never got a chance to know what it was all about.

There are some fine books and essays about that. Lewis Hyde has written about alcoholism and poets and the role that society gives its writers - encouraging them to die.

What makes me furious, not just because we're in an interview, but I don't like when writers take your words and put them somewhere else, in the wrong context in their own article about you.

Women writers have been told, forever, that our stories were not valuable. Not as valuable as men's stories about wars, business, power.

How some of the writers I come across get through their books without dying of boredom is beyond me.

I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing.