Jack Kirby Quotes That Are creative, dynamic and iconic

I feel that man can transcend himself to a point where he can accomplish greater things than he thinks. I see people depressed and I see people who devalue themselves and I feel that's a terrible, terrible waste. But I love the people who try. But try fairly, try honestly.

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.

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

Life at best is bittersweet.

Perfectionists are their own devils.

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'll never speak to another person without telling the truth.

I've been a cruel man in my time, I've been a devious man in my time, like everybody else. I've told lies in my time. But I've seen enough suffering to experiment with the truth.

Some of my friends became gangsters. You became a gangster depending upon how fast you wanted a suit. Gangsters weren't the stereotypes you see in the movies. I knew the real ones, and the real ones were out for big money.

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.

I get a lot of comics, and I can look at a comic and tell immediately whether I'll enjoy it or not. There are elements in the stories that I have no rapport with. I see dirty language, I see sleazy backgrounds; I see it reflected in the movies, the movies are comics to me. And I don't see a sleazy world. I see hope. I see a positive world.

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.

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.

I couldn't draw anything that was too outlandish or too horrible.

I never did that. What I did draw was something intriguing. There was something about this monster that you could live with. If you saw him you wouldn't faint dead away.

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 came out of school one day, and there was this pulp magazine.

It was a rainy day, and it was floating toward the sewer in the gutter. So I pick up this pulp magazine, and it's Wonder Stories, and it's got a rocket-ship on the cover, and I'd never seen a rocket-ship.

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.

The average politician was crooked. That was my ambition, to be a crooked politician. I'd see them in these restaurants, and they'd all hold these conferences. I'd see politicians who were supposed to be on opposite sides of issues all together at one table.

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.

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 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'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.

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.

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!!

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

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

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

Speaking as a human being, not as a businessman - the unions are great. The unions are great for the working people because they protect you, but I didn't see them that way as a young man. First of all, the papers would connect them with thee communists - labor unions were communists.

I'm not the sort of fellow who does the same thing all the time. I began using a lot of science fiction apparatus. I came out with the atom bomb two years before it was actually used because I read in the paper that a fellow named Nicola Tesla was working on the atom bomb.

I began to learn about the universe myself and take it seriously. I know the names of the stars. I know how near or far the heavenly bodies are from our own planet. I know our own place in the universe. I can feel the vastness of it inside myself. I began to realize with each passing fact what a wonderful and awesome place the universe is, and that helped me in comics because I was looking for the awesome.

I achieved perfection, my type of perfection - visual storytelling. Storytelling was my style.

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.

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.

An American is a guy, a rich guy with a family, a decent guy with a family with as many kids as he likes, doing what he wants, working with people that he likes, and enjoying himself to his very old age.

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

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 admired anybody who could make a buck with his drawing.

My parents were immigrants. And the place for all immigrants was the factories. They were the source of cheap labor.

My ambition was always to be a perfect picture of an American.

I could do whatever I liked to do during the day. I didn't have to work in an office. I could work at home. I could work at my leisure. I worked 'til four in the morning. I worked with the TV and radio on - it was a great setup. I was a night person and still am.

If a carpenter makes a chair that's comfortable for the person who's going to sit in it, he's done his job. If a train engineer gets a train in on time, he's going to make someone happy who's waiting at the station. And if an artist draws the kind of a picture that people are going to enjoy looking at, or he makes a visual story which people are going to enjoy reading, he's done his job.

I'd had a belly-full of being subservient. I had to find something else to do, and I did. I went to the animation houses. I went to new fields.

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.

When Superman came out it galvanized the entire industry. It's just part of the American scene.

I had very high respect for the Pratt Institute, but I thought that I had done my best, and that was not their version of the best.