Quotes from Stephen Hillenburg

When SpongeBob's perseverance shines through, and you root for him - that's when the show is working.

I do think that the attitude of the show is about tolerance. Everybody is different, and the show embraces that. The character SpongeBob is an oddball. He's kind of weird, but he's kind of special.

I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a 'SpongeBob' comic book from me. All the stories will be original and always true to the humor, characters, and universe of the 'SpongeBob SquarePants' series.

I think the source of SpongeBob's humour is classic, and that's always appealing.

Most sponges in the ocean are sedentary: They attach themselves to a rock and sit and filter-feed the rest of their lives and reproduce, and that's about it. Not that they are not interesting, but they are not that kinetic. They are not mobile. They don't cook Krabbie Patties!

The characters are likable. Even the villainous Plankton - he's still flawed, and you still root for him, in a way, and the style of humor is simple, and it's about human behavior, and everybody can identify with that.

I never imagined that I'd end up in animation, but marine biology and art collided, and here we are!

I've always been interested in art and making things, but I chose not to go to art school because I thought I needed to do something else. Art was a tough way to make a living.

I knew I wanted to create a character who was nerdy and kind of square, so when I drew a square sponge, everything came together. And originally his name was SpongeBoy, but there we couldn't use that for trademark reasons.

SpongeBob is an innocent, and people respond to an innocent. I don't think it matters if you're young or old.

Our characters act silly, even totally ridiculous at times, and most of our jokes don't come out of pop cultural references. It seems like we're aiming at a child audience, but everyone can laugh at the basic human traits that are funny. It's playful, the humor is playful, the world is playful. You can kind of let go.

In the show, the whole point of the fast food - the fact that SpongeBob loves being part of the fast-food chain and that being a manager is his ultimate dream - it's ironic. It's something that most people don't think is a great thing to try to achieve.

I was into Jacques Cousteau as a kid and started scuba-diving around 14, which blew my mind. It was all colour, another world.

Stupidity ain't a virus, but it's sure is spreadin' like one. - Sandy Cheeks

They're making us think our thoughts are what we're thinking...I think.-Patrick Star

The machinations of my mind are an enigma." -Patrick Starr

I just kind of figured that the marine biology would be a career, and the art would be something I did for my own self-expression.

I see SpongeBob on ice-cream trucks a lot, and I've got bootleg SpongeBob merchandise from Mexico.

The morality we all grew up with and are accustomed to is what feels right.

The main thing about SpongeBob is that he celebrates innocence. His outlook on life is very optimistic and earnest, and I think kids relate to that. He has a creative spark in the same way children are very creative from an open and naive perspective.

In the '70s, as a kid, someone took me to a Tournee of Animation festival at the L.A. County Museum of Art.

I was just looking at a packet that had SpongeBob thong underwear, so it goes farther than I would imagine.

When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask ourselves if it's appropriate for children.

I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one.