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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I go through my day remembering things like telephone cords.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I always doodled as a kid while I was talking on the phone or watching TV.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?'

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

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

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

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.'

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.