Jack Kirby Quotes

The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I'd beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it.

I feel my characters are valid, my characters are people, my characters have hope. Hope is the thing that'll take us through.

It's not in the draftsmanship, it's in the man. Like I say, a tool is dead. A brush is a dead object. It's in the man. If you want to do it, you do it.

Kid ... Comics will break your heart.

I felt the comics grew because they became the common man's literature, the common man's art, the common man's publishing.

Our dreams make us large.

I was an artist, but not a self-proclaimed great artist, just a common man who was working in a form of art which is universal.

Everybody can draw, in my estimation. If you give a man 50 years, he'll come up with the Mona Lisa.

If you think a man draws the type of hands that you want to draw, steal ‘em. Take those hands.

I feel that man can transcend himself to a point where he can accomplish greater things than he thinks.

Life at best is bittersweet.

A character to me can't be contrived. I don't like to contrive characters. They have to have an element of truth.

All human beings have the capability of doing what they want, what they're attracted to.

I draw people as I see them. I'm not involved in making artistic masterpieces. My, my object is to mirror people and I've always done that.

Perfectionists are their own devils.

I've never done anything half-heartedly; it's a disservice to me and the audience if I do it half-heartedly.

I had to make a living. I was a married man. I had a wife. I had a home. I had children. I had to make a living. That's the common pursuit of every man.

I've done my job extremely well. My only beef is that a lot of people have put their fingers in whatever I've done and tried to screw it up, and I've always resented that.

Once we've learned enough about the universe we will admit to ourselves that we will never know everything.

A man is entitled to draw things in his own style. I didn't hurt Superman. I made him powerful. I admire Superman, but I've got to do my own style.

In the Army when we had judo classes, out of the class of 27 just me and another guy graduated. I grew to enjoy it because I knew I could do it well. I tried to do everything well.

Nobody ever asked me to do anything. Nobody knew what to do. When comics were brand new, nobody knew what kind of comics to make. So you were mostly on your own.

I didn't like Army life. I didn't like taking orders. I didn't like discipline. I didn't like being yelled at. You'd get 10 years for punching a sergeant so I couldn't punch a sergeant.

I never duck out of a fight; I don't care what the hell the odds are, and I'm rough at times, but I try to be a decent guy all the time. That's the way I've always lived.

I feel that my characters all have some part of my character. I feel that they're all me in some way, certainly not in individuality, but they all bear elements of what I feel.

You had to grow up sometime. The fellows who grew early, they were in jeopardy. They became the cops and the crooks, and the crooks became the gangsters. The crooks became the Al Capones.

My monsters were lovable monsters. I gave them names - some were evil and some were good. They made sales, and that's always been my prime object in comics.

I've never done anything half-heartedly. It's the reason my comics did well. It's the reason my comics were drawn well. I can't do anything bad.

You fought fair. If the other guy wants to fight and you knocked him out, you did your best for him. You didn't want to hurt him any more.

I feel like an independent man, and I am. This is the kind of feeling I always wanted. You can rarely get that... Well, I could rarely get that in the early part of my life.

I admired anybody who could make a buck with his drawing.

I write from a people's point of view. I love people because I understand them. I understand an enemy, I understand a friend, I understand grey areas, and I understand black areas.

I feel that any man that tries, any man that comes out with something we like, is a good man. A man doesn't have to be Leonardo Da Vinci to be sincere.

I never sued anybody, I never fought anybody or was in conflict or contention with any other party in a legal way. I feel that it hurts people, it hurts their families.

My anatomy was self-taught. I feel everybody has that ability. I drew instinctively. Mine was an instinctive style.

Aw, where we come from the Anti-Life Equation is one of many others--almost as awesome!! But they merely exist!!

Comics have a caste system - an editor has to act in a certain way, an artist has to be humble.

I wasn't the kind of student that Pratt was looking for. They wanted patient people who would work on something forever. I didn't want to work on any project forever. I intended to get things done.

Any kind of music can be written badly and it can be written wonderfully. I admire a top performer in any field.

I'm not interested in the ego trip of creating or not creating. I'm interested in selling a magazine. Rock-bottom, I sell magazines. I'm a thorough professional who does his job.

There was violence because first of all, there were ethnic differences and names. If you were small, they called you a runt, and you had to do something about that even if there were five other guys.

My style is personal, my style of writing is personal, and I believe in that. I believe what comes out of me is an individual thing, and that's why I, I believe in the individual.

I hated to fight all the time just to enjoy my day. Fighting wasn't the kind of thing that I enjoyed, but I grew to enjoy it because I did it so long.

Nobody ever wrote a story for me. I told in every story what was really inside my gut, and it came out that way. My stories began to get noticed because the average reader could associate with them.

I was a good student in the subjects that I wanted to be good in. The curriculum in my section was excellent.

I'm OMAC! Evacuate this section! I'm going to destroy it!

I didn't resolve the questions... and I find that entertaining. And if my life were to end tomorrow, it would be fulfilled in that manner. I would say, 'The questions have been terrific.'

I never had stock endings. I didn't believe in stock endings. To make the [reader] happy was not my objective, but to make the [reader] say, "Yeah, that's what would happen" - that was my objective.

Every father was his own man. He did what he wanted. If your mother went shopping, your father never went with her.

Everybody was wary. This was a time when communists marched through the streets, waving flags and shouting. The unions did the same thing so you began to associate them.