Seth is the pen name of Gregory Gallant. Seth is the cartoonist behind the painfully infrequent comic book series PALOOKAVILLE. His novels, which have been translated into 8 languages, include IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN, WIMBLEDON GREEN, CLYDE FANS BOOK ONE, and the illustrated memoir of his father, BANNOCK, BEANS AND BLACK TEA.
As a book designer, Seth has worked on a variety of projects including the recent Penguin Classics reedition of THE PORTABLE DOROTHY PARKER. He is the designer of the 25 volume series THE COMPLETE PEANUTS and the upcoming two volume series on Canadian master cartoonist DOUG WRIGHT.
As an illustrator, Seth has produced commercial works for virtually all of the major Canadian and American magazines. His work frequently appears inside and on the cover of the New Yorker.
Seth lives in Guelph, Ontario with his wife and two cats and rarely leaves his basement.
“Love. It has always seemed to me that love is a combination of lust and pity. (...) I've got to have some feelings of pity for a girl to love her. She's got to have a fragile quality of some sort.”
“This business of 'kidding yourself' worries me. I don't even know how much self-deception I'm involved in. It's hard to get down to the truth about yourself. Any time I feel like I'm finally being honest with myself I wonder if there's some deeper truth I'm shying away from. It amazes me how I can know something and avoid it at the same time.”
“Dinosaurs are real popular right now.”
“I've come to the conclusion that there are two types of people. The fucked up good and the fucked up bad. You see, everybody's fucked up. Everybody has had traumas in their lives to deal with. With most people these traumas mess them up inside... but a few people they come through even better adjusted somehow... I mean, they haven't developed damaging emotional problems.”
“There is an awful feeling of inevitability to life. Maybe this feeling is some proof of the existence of fate... or more likely it's simply the way our brains function that gives us this illusion. It's hard to say for certain.”
“A little misery is good for the soul.”
“Sick ones cannot teach you to be well. Psychiatrists have a high suicide rate. Why do you think they can help you live happily, or add to your vitality? Physicians are not the healthiest of men by far. Why do you think they can cure you?”
“I’m over here in my unit, isolated and alone, eating my terrible tasting food, and I have to look over at that. That looks like the most fun I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and it’s B.S. - excuse my language. I’m just saying that I wash and dry; I’m like a single mother. Look, we all know home-ec is a joke—no offense—it’s just that everyone takes this class to get an A, and it’s bullshit—and I’m sorry. I’m not putting down your profession, but it’s just the way I feel. I don’t want to sit here, all by myself, cooking this shitty food—no offense—and I just think that I don’t need to cook tiramisu. When am I gonna need to cook tiramisu? Am I going to be a chef? No. There’s three weeks left of school, give me a fuckin’ break! I’m sorry for cursing.”
“The world of [comic book] collecting is not a pretty place. For a bunch of guys who like good-over-evil stories, you sure meet a lot of morally bankrupt assholes.”
“People claim that love is the deepest feeling, but don't you believe it. Loneliness is the most affecting of human emotions. Nothing makes life more vivid. If you wish to live in the moment, I recommend intense loneliness.”
“If you become so frightened of realities that are not your own, if you take upon yourselves tragedies that do not exist in your reality, in your moment, then you weaken your position and weaken the position, of those you think you are helping. You look about you and you see only hopelessness and helplessness. You organize your reality according to the tragedies of the newspapers!”
“You do not hate anyone you are not capable of loving. Remember that.”
“You make your own reality.”
“If someone tells you that pleasure is wrong and tolerance is weakness, and that you must follow this or that dogma blindly in obedience, and if you are told this is that only right road toward the idealized good, then most likely you are dealing with a fanatic. If you are told to kill for the sake of peace, you are dealing with someone who does not understand peace or justice. If you are told to give up your free will, you are dealing with a fanatic!”
“When your ideas about yourself change, so does your experience.”
“You get what you concentrate upon. There is no other main rule.”
“If you want to know what you think of yourself, then ask yourself what you think of others and you will find the answer.”
“You must watch the pictures that you paint with your imagination.”
“All energy contains consciousness. That one sentence is basically scientific heresy, and in many circles it is religious heresy as well. A recognition of that simple statement would indeed change your world.”
“Do not place the words of ANYONE above the feelings of your own being. You can learn much from others, but the deepest knowledge must come from within yourself.”
“The ends do not justify the means”
“There is one Christian commandment that can be used as a yardstick...'Thou shalt not kill.' That is clear enough...'Thou shalt not kill' says you shall not kill your neighbor no matter how you feel about him. ”
“The present is the point of power.”