Quotes from Michael Leunig

So few humans seem to fully exist themselves that I wonder if all this endless speculation and haggling about God is really an exploration of a more interesting and embarrassing question about ourselves.

Humanity hungers for the uncommon.

I never really understood who the Magi were as a child. What is a Magi? Not a word I would use, but a magpie I could understand.

Many people first encounter Jesus during childhood when they are suddenly confronted by a horrifying statue of a man nailed to a cross, and this is often a most unfortunate and repulsive beginning.

Emotional stability has not been America's gift to the world.

As a child, I dreamed that my bed could fly and glide and swoop and hover high over the countryside near my home while, snug and secure, I looked down in wonder at the great carpet of life that seemed so perfect beneath me.

Perhaps life is actually more confusing and unknowable to an adult than a child, but grown-ups have learned to deceive themselves and act as if they understand what's going on; and some are elected to high office on the basis of their ability to create this impression.

I have not much love for the bright lights - unless it's the sun creeping up over the horizon.

In some ways, calm bodily protest has a nakedness to it that may be deeply embarrassing for observers; an act not unlike the bare-faced Oliver Twist effrontery that stands vulnerably before authority, asking for more or better.

The work of the artist is to express what is repressed or even to speak the unspoken grief of society.

I don't like to brag, but I must tell you that I am regarded in some circles as being in the upper echelons of the elite loony left.

Stay away from excellence at all costs; it stinks.

Any cartoon that can be liked by a committee is really not worth drawing; in fact, must not be drawn at all! Better to become a stockbroker.

The hypocrisy of some is that we like to think of ourselves as sophisticated and evolved, but we're still also driven by primal urges like greed and power.

As we grow, we lift our gaze higher and higher, and then sometimes we are brought to our knees, but all is not lost; what we find on the ground can be very valuable and precisely what we need.

Sadly, semi-consciousness, along with daydreaming, is a capacity that is actively discouraged among children in schools, and our society is much poorer and harsher as a consequence. The value of liminal space and transitional imagination remain personally and culturally undeveloped.

It is home schooling that is rejecting a narrowness. It is not a radical value system; it's actually quite conservative.

For 13 years, I struggled with education and have only just realised that I was actually struggling to protect myself from it. I was trying to protect my soul.

I didn't mind my own company as a child; I was happy playing alone in the sandpit.

Existential philosophy, poetry and art - just like sadness - were all unavoidable to a tender young man in the meat works.

I think we live in delusional times, whether it's with a great ability to totally distract ourselves with technology, or with speed and the velocity of life.

Wisdom may best arise from a humbling reality.

It's terrible the way words get attached to you like barnacles.

I had a few ducks as a kid.