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Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby Quotes

Artist

Jack Kirby was a renowned comic book artist, illustrator, and writer, best known for his work with Marvel and DC Comics. His creations include iconic characters and stories such as 'The Fantastic Four', 'The X-Men', 'Captain Marvel', and 'The New Avengers'.

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All Ifs Men People Feels Guy Way Kind Artist Done Draws

Famous Jack Kirby Quotes

“Homo Sapiens and their guns.”

Author:Jack Kirby

“Our dreams make us large.”

Dream Our Dreams

Author:Jack Kirby

“I feel that man can transcend himself to a point where he can accomplish greater things than he thinks. I see people depressed and I see people who devalue themselves and I feel that's a terrible, terrible waste. But I love the people who try. But try fairly, try honestly.”

People Thinking Men Feels Trying Greater Terrible Waste Accomplish Honestly Greater Things Devalue

Author:Jack Kirby

“My parents were immigrants. And the place for all immigrants was the factories. They were the source of cheap labor.”

Parent Source Labor Immigrants Factories Cheap Labor

Author:Jack Kirby

“I draw people as I see them. I'm not involved in making artistic masterpieces. My, my object is to mirror people and I've always done that.”

People Done Objects Involved Draws Mirrors Artistic Masterpiece

Author:Jack Kirby

“Some of my friends became gangsters. You became a gangster depending upon how fast you wanted a suit. Gangsters weren't the stereotypes you see in the movies. I knew the real ones, and the real ones were out for big money.”

Real Bigs Wanted My Friends Suits Stereotype Gangsters Real Ones

Book:Collected Jack Kirby Collector

Source: Collected Jack Kirby Collector

“The average politician was crooked. That was my ambition, to be a crooked politician. I'd see them in these restaurants, and they'd all hold these conferences. I'd see politicians who were supposed to be on opposite sides of issues all together at one table.”

Together Sides Issues Politician Ambition Opposites Tables Average Supposed To Be Restaurants Conferences Crooked My Ambition Crooked Politicians

Author:Jack Kirby

“If America gave anybody anything it is ambition. Bad things would come out of it because some guys are in a hurry, but that doesn't mean they're evil or anything, it just means they fall into bad grace somehow.”

Ifs Mean America Guy Fall Evil Grace Ambition Bad Things

Author:Jack Kirby

“Of course, mothers were very conventional, everything was very conventional. You had to have approval.”

Mother Courses Approval Conventional

Author:Jack Kirby

“There were very strict social conventions, and you adhered to it, and I think it gave you a lot of character. When a man said something, he meant it. He wasn't kidding around. There were no jokes involved. Nobody was in the mood to joke unless you hit a guy with a baseball bat.”

Thinking Men Said Character Guy Social Involved Jokes Baseball Mood Conventions Bats Strict

Author:Jack Kirby

“There was violence because first of all, there were ethnic differences and names. If you were small, they called you a runt, and you had to do something about that even if there were five other guys.”

Ifs Firsts Guy Names Differences Five Violence Other Guys Runts

Author:Jack Kirby

“You had to grow up sometime. The fellows who grew early, they were in jeopardy. They became the cops and the crooks, and the crooks became the gangsters. The crooks became the Al Capones.”

Grows Growing Up Grew Fellows Als Cop Gangsters Crooks Jeopardy Capone

Author:Jack Kirby

“I wouldn't call Adolf Hitler a corporal. Adolf Hitler was looked up to. He was revered almost like a God because he was feared. Adolf Hitler took all of Europe, and my generation had to confront Adolf Hitler.”

Generations Europe My Generation

Author:Jack Kirby

“My style is personal, my style of writing is personal, and I believe in that. I believe what comes out of me is an individual thing, and that's why I, I believe in the individual.”

Writing Believe Individual I Believe Style I Believe In

Author:Jack Kirby

“A climb-out fight is where you climb a building. You climb fire escapes. You climb to the top of the building. You fight on the roof, and you fight all the way down again.”

Way Fighting Fire Building Climbs Roof Fire Escapes

Author:Jack Kirby

“You fought fair. If the other guy wants to fight and you knocked him out, you did your best for him. You didn't want to hurt him any more.”

Ifs Want Guy Fighting Hurt Fairs Other Guys

Author:Jack Kirby

“There was one time they knocked me out and laid me in front of my mother's door. And in order for my mother not to be shocked they readjusted my clothes and they saw that nothing was rumpled and I looked very comfortable next to the apartment door, so when my mother would open the door it wouldn't be that much of a shock.”

Mother Order Next Saws Doors Fronts Comfortable Clothes Shock One Time Apartment Shocked

Author:Jack Kirby

“My parents loved me. My father used to carry me around on my shoulders. I know my father loved me. All families love their children, and we were good boys.”

Knows Children Used Father Parent Boys Shoulders Family Love Good Boy

Author:Jack Kirby

“I was a good student in the subjects that I wanted to be good in. The curriculum in my section was excellent.”

Wanted Subjects Students Be Good Excellent Sections Curriculum Good Students

Author:Jack Kirby

“I came out of school one day, and there was this pulp magazine. It was a rainy day, and it was floating toward the sewer in the gutter. So I pick up this pulp magazine, and it's Wonder Stories, and it's got a rocket-ship on the cover, and I'd never seen a rocket-ship.”

Stories School Wonder One Day Picks Ships Magazines Floating Rockets Rainy Rainy Day Gutters Pulp Sewers

Author:Jack Kirby

“All human beings have the capability of doing what they want, what they're attracted to.”

Want Humans Human Beings Capability

Author:Jack Kirby

“I tried to, from my very early years, I've been an inveterate movie goer and still am and I, I love the medium. So what I, what I draw and what I'm still doing, is part of that particular orientation.”

Years Stills Particular Draws Mediums Orientation

Author:Jack Kirby

“My anatomy was self-taught. I feel everybody has that ability. I drew instinctively. Mine was an instinctive style.”

Feels Self Ability Style Mines Taught Anatomy Self Taught

Author:Jack Kirby

“I admired anybody who could make a buck with his drawing.”

Author:Jack Kirby

“When Superman came out it galvanized the entire industry. It's just part of the American scene.”

Author:Jack Kirby

“I wasn't the kind of student that Pratt was looking for. They wanted patient people who would work on something forever. I didn't want to work on any project forever. I intended to get things done.”

People Want Kind Done Wanted Forever Students Projects Patient Things Done

Author:Jack Kirby

“I had very high respect for the Pratt Institute, but I thought that I had done my best, and that was not their version of the best.”

Done Versions Institute

Author:Jack Kirby

“I achieved perfection, my type of perfection - visual storytelling. Storytelling was my style.”

Style Type Perfection Storytelling Visuals Visual Storytelling

Author:Jack Kirby

“I was an artist, but not a self-proclaimed great artist, just a common man who was working in a form of art which is universal.”

Men Art Self Form Artist Common Universal Great Art Great Artist Common Man

Author:Jack Kirby

“If you're drawing a Western town, you can duplicate that Western town from instinct alone. Some artists may take it from other illustrations or duplicate what you've drawn, but it will never have that gut reality that's instinctive in the artist.”

Ifs May Reality Artist Towns Instinct Western Drawing Guts Illustration Duplicate

Author:Jack Kirby

“I felt the comics grew because they became the common man's literature, the common man's art, the common man's publishing.”

Men Art Literature Felt Common Grew Publishing Common Man

Author:Jack Kirby

“My purpose was what my father's purpose was - to make a living and to have a family. I was going to do the right thing. My dream to me was to have money to support it and to live in the kind of house I liked.”

Kind Dream Purpose Father House Support Right Thing

Author:Jack Kirby

“I didn't like Army life. I didn't like taking orders. I didn't like discipline. I didn't like being yelled at. You'd get 10 years for punching a sergeant so I couldn't punch a sergeant.”

Years Order Discipline Army Punching Sergeants

Author:Jack Kirby

“I hated to fight all the time just to enjoy my day. Fighting wasn't the kind of thing that I enjoyed, but I grew to enjoy it because I did it so long.”

Kind Long Fighting Enjoy Grew Enjoyed Hated

Author:Jack Kirby

“In the Army when we had judo classes, out of the class of 27 just me and another guy graduated. I grew to enjoy it because I knew I could do it well. I tried to do everything well.”

Wells Guy Enjoy Class Grew Army Other Guys Judo

Author:Jack Kirby

“Every father was his own man. He did what he wanted. If your mother went shopping, your father never went with her.”

Ifs Men Wanted Mother Father Shopping

Author:Jack Kirby

“Nobody ever wrote a story for me. I told in every story what was really inside my gut, and it came out that way. My stories began to get noticed because the average reader could associate with them.”

Way Stories Reader Average Guts Associates

Author:Jack Kirby

“The people who worked in comics were terrific guys. I had a good association with them, and I enjoyed comics for that very reason.”

People Reason Guy Enjoyed Association Terrific

Author:Jack Kirby

“Nobody ever asked me to do anything. Nobody knew what to do. When comics were brand new, nobody knew what kind of comics to make. So you were mostly on your own.”

Kind Brands Brand New

Author:Jack Kirby

“I didn't have an affinity for horror. But I knew that commercially it was viable.”

Horror Affinity

Author:Jack Kirby

“The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I'd beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it.”

Ifs Real Would Be Guy Beats Real Politics

Author:Jack Kirby

“I was happy because I made enough money to give to my parents. I made enough money to get married on. I made enough money to enjoy myself a little more than I would have if I didn't have enough money.”

Ifs Giving Littles Made Enough Parent Enjoy Married

Author:Jack Kirby

“Comics have a caste system - an editor has to act in a certain way, an artist has to be humble.”

Way Artist Certain Humble Editors Be Humble Castes Caste System

Author:Jack Kirby

“An artist has to be humble, an editor must be officious, and a publisher must be somewhere out in the galaxy enjoying godhood. It was a caste system, pure and simple. And it was accepted that way. Nobody thought of contracts, nobody thought of insisting on better deals.”

Way Artist Enjoy Simple Deals Pure Humble Accepted Editors Contracts Publishers Galaxy Be Humble Castes Insisting Caste System

Author:Jack Kirby

“I didn't save my money for a lawyer. I was a very young man, and saved my money for having a good time.”

Men Young Lawyer Saved Young Man Good Times Having A Good Time

Author:Jack Kirby

“Everybody was wary. This was a time when communists marched through the streets, waving flags and shouting. The unions did the same thing so you began to associate them.”

Streets Unions Communist Flags Associates Shouting

Author:Jack Kirby

“Speaking as a human being, not as a businessman - the unions are great. The unions are great for the working people because they protect you, but I didn't see them that way as a young man. First of all, the papers would connect them with thee communists - labor unions were communists.”

People Men Way Firsts Humans Young Human Beings Protect Paper Labor Unions Thee Young Man Communist Businessman Papers Protect You Labor Union

Author:Jack Kirby

“I'm not the sort of fellow who does the same thing all the time. I began using a lot of science fiction apparatus. I came out with the atom bomb two years before it was actually used because I read in the paper that a fellow named Nicola Tesla was working on the atom bomb.”

Years Doe Two Used Fiction Paper Fellows Science Fiction Bombs Two Years Atoms Atom Bomb Tesla

Author:Jack Kirby

“I always enjoyed doing monster books. Monster books gave me the opportunity to draw things out of the ordinary. Monster books were a challenge - what kind of monster would fascinate people?”

People Kind Book Opportunity Challenges Draws Ordinary Monsters Enjoyed

Author:Jack Kirby

“I couldn't draw anything that was too outlandish or too horrible. I never did that. What I did draw was something intriguing. There was something about this monster that you could live with. If you saw him you wouldn't faint dead away.”

Ifs Saws Draws Monsters Horrible Intriguing Outlandish

Author:Jack Kirby

About the Author

Born: August 28, 1917
Died: February 6, 1994
Known for: Artist
Quotes: 109

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