Michael Leunig
Michael Leunig
Michael Leunig, typically referred to as Leunig, is an Australian cartoonist, poet and cultural commentator. His best known works include The Adventures of Vasco Pyjama and the Curly Flats series. He was declared an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia in 1999...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionCartoonist
Date of Birth2 June 1945
CountryAustralia
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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.
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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.
time
I see a lot of my children. They're around the house all the time on the farm, you know.
courts landed marks paper recall sorts
Over the years, my marks on paper have landed me in all sorts of courts and controversies - I have been comprehensively labelled; anti-this and anti-that, anti-social, anti-football, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, anti-science, anti-republican, anti-American, anti-Australian - to recall just an armful of the antis.
cast change economic lose onto resources suddenly talents wits
Out of economic hardship can come change - we are suddenly cast onto our wits and our talents and our resources and our strengths, as we lose all the choices we once had.
function melancholy
I think melancholy is part of the natural condition, you know. Anyway, I think it's the artist's function to have their melancholy and not hide it, you see.
claiming difficult fear free history imagine lived people time
It is difficult to imagine any time in history when so many people claiming to be so free have lived in so much fear of being unattractive.
arise best humbling wisdom
Wisdom may best arise from a humbling reality.
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Who can protest alone? Who dares rise up? It is not easy. One is all alone, and evermore shall be so.
inner
Stay out of the loop, the club, the inner circle.
excellence stay
Stay away from excellence at all costs; it stinks.
comprehend further human monstrous truths understanding
Try as I do to comprehend the human project and my part in it, I am further than ever from understanding the monstrous everyday things that seem like self-evident truths and existential necessities to so many.
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Today, people call each other 'guys' - this derives from Guy Fawkes, the bomb-making terrorist. No greater tribute has ever been paid to anyone in the history of politics.
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To be a pleasant person, you would at least need to see the point of being a pleasant person, or have it explained to you at some sort of 'finishing school' where you could actually learn the laws of propriety and the skills of appearing well-adapted, easygoing and attractively trouble free. But where do you learn these things? I don't know.