Charles M. Schulz
Charles Monroe Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.
Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to The Saturday Evening Post; the first of 17 single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.
Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but he abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God.
Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. Schulz stated that his routine every morning consisted of eating a jelly donut and sitting down to write the day's strip. After coming up with an idea (which he said could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours), he began drawing it, which took about an hour for dailies and three hours for Sunday strips. He stubbornly refused to hire an inker or letterer, saying that "it would be equivalent to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts for him." In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999.
Schulz often touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side. Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church. In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts, and other popular culture items. From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist": “I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.”
“What's the good of living if you don't try a few things?”
“She nibbles her pencil... She's human!”
“I’m torn between the desire to create and the desire to destroy.”
“Only in math can you buy sixty cantaloupes and no one asks what the hell is wrong with you.”
“Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere. He's gotta pick this one. He's got to. I don't see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around and there's not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see.”
“Cartooning will destroy you; it will break your heart.”
“It doesn't matter what you believe just so long as you're sincere.”
“More health tips: Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Get plenty of rest. And learn to duck.”
“Travel tips: How to avoid carsickness, seasickness and airsickness... Be careful what you eat. And stay home.”
“What happened to fun?""Our insurance doesn't cover it!”
“Beauty tips. How to look younger: Don't be born so soon.”
“Years are like candy bars... We're paying more, but they're getting shorter.”
“I've been thinking... Maybe you're a mockingbird... Mockingbirds imitate the songs of other birds... No, I've never heard of any copyright problems.”
“You know what Oscar Wilde said, ma'am? He said, "nothing that is worth knowing can be taught". Nothing personal, ma'am... Carry on.”
“Maybe I can put it another way... Life, Charlie Brown, is like a deck chair.""Like a what?""Have you ever been on a cruise ship? Passengers open up these canvas deck chairs so they can sit in the sun... Some people place their chairs facing the rear of the ship so they can see where they've been... Other people face their chairs forward... They want to see where they're going! On the cruise ship of life, Charlie Brown, which way is your deck chair facing?""I've never been able to get one unfolded...”
“These are valentines for all the boys at school that I like... And this is a very special one for my sweet babboo.""Does your sweet babboo know who he is?""Oh, yes, he knows who he is...""I do not!”
“See the valentine I made for Linus? On the inside, I wrote, To my sweet babboo.""He says he's not your sweet babboo.""What does he know?”
“If I were given the opportunity to present a gift to the next generation, it would be the ability for each individual to learn to laugh at himself.”
“Hello, Sally? Let me talk to Chuck, will you?""I think he's lost in the woods.""I know what you mean, but let me talk to him, will you?”
“Good afternoon... My name is Lucy... I'm going to be your right-fielder... Our special today is a misjudged fly-ball. We also have a nice bobbled ground ball and an exellent late throw to the infield... I'll be back in a moment to take your order.”
“My grandfather has been very depressed lately. He just doesn't know what to do. He says it's late in the game, and he's afraid that life has him beaten.""Tell him to take out the goalie.”
“A bean bag is a perfect place to sulk. You can sink way down deep, and sulk for hours... You only have to stick your head up once in a while... to see if anybody cares.”
“I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think about today...""No, that's giving up... I'm still hpoing that yesterday will get better.”
“I have a feeling that this is going to be a good year.""What makes you think so?""I don't know... It just has all the appearances of a good year.""Have you looked in all the corners?”
“There's the house where that little red-haired girl lives... Maybe she'll see me, and come rushing out to thank me for the Christmas card I sent her... Maybe she'll even give me a hug... Maybe Billie Jean King will call me tonight, and invite me out to dinner.”
“That stupid Charlie Brown! He had the nerve to say I'm not perfect!""So I suppose you hit him, huh?""Rats! I knew I forgot something!”
“Let's just say that life has me beaten... So I give up! I admit there's no way I can win...""What is it you want, Charlie Brown?""How about two out of three?”
“Rats! Sometimes it's very difficult being a dog... Especially when it's raining. You're looking forward to a great breakfast... When it arrives, you're full of joyful anticipation... Then you see the water rise in your dog dish... And you watch your pancakes float downstream!”
“I've always been criticized, right from the beginning! Right from the very first day I was born... They said I wasn't right for the part!”
“One moment, please... We interrupt our regular program to bring you this special bulletin: It's a nice day outside.”
“Dear Sweetheart, do you ever think of me? Just the other day I was thinking of you. I'm pretty sure it was you.”
“Dear Sweetheart, Without you my days are endless. Days seem like weeks... Weeks feel like months... Months like years... Years like centuries... Centuries like... You get the idea.”
“Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about all the dumb things I do every day... If I live to be eighty and I do ten dumb things each day... That would be about two hundred and ninety thousand dumb things... When you add up all the dumb things you do, it's best to use round figures...”
“Empty?! You took all the cookies!""They were crying to get out of the jar... Cookies get claustrophobia too, you know!”
“I never seem to know what's going on... Right from the very start, my life has been strange. I think I know what happened... I must have missed all the rehearsals.”
“Brothers and sisters should never be in the same family.”
“Tell me what you'll do if you're captured by the coyotes... Well, that might work, but does your mother live near here?”
“How do we know where we're going? Follow the moon! Remember, the moon is always over Hollywood, and Needles isn't far from Hollywood.”
“Dear Valentine, I have thought of you often. Not all the time, but often.”
“Valentine, just a few words to tell you how I love you. I have loved you since the first day I saw you. Whenever that was.”
“Why is it that you don't love me?""Sometimes I wish I knew...""Don't anybody tell him!!”
“Why me, lord? Don't answer that!”
“If life were a camera, I'd have the lens cap on.”
“Mr. Clausc/o North PoleDear Joe...”
“Today is my grandfather's birthday.""How old is he?""Sixty-three. It's hard to believe he was once a human being.”
“Here's Joe Cool hanging around the student union”
“Schroeder, do you think love is the answer to everything?""Boy, I hope not!”
“Life is full of choices, but you never get any!”
“There's nothing like unrequited love to take all the flavor out of a peanut butter sandwich.”
“Never lie in bed at night asking yourself questions you can't answer.”