Top 140 Matt Groening Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”

— Matt Groening

2. “You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is ‘never try.’ Homer Simpson.”

— Matt Groening

3. “Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.”

— Matt Groening

4. “You should listen to your heart, and not the voices in your head.”

— Matt Groening

5. “Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They’re about to announce the lottery numbers.”

— Matt Groening

6. “Me fail English? That’s unpossible.”

— Matt Groening

7. “I promise I’ll do anything for you, especialy if it’s easy. Homer Simpson.”

— Matt Groening

8. “Keep your expectations tiny you’ll go through life not so whiney.”

— Matt Groening

9. “I’m not going to stop torturing myself till I figure out the cause of my pain.”

— Matt Groening

10. “If people only knew how much I secretly hated them, they’d love me for holding it in.”

— Matt Groening

11. “I thought I had an appetite for destruction, but all I wanted was a club sandwich.”

— Matt Groening

12. “Here’s to alcohol: the cause of, and answer to, all of life’s problems.”

— Matt Groening

13. “Living creatively is really important to maintain throughout your life. And living creatively doesn’t mean only artistic creativity, although that’s part of it. It means being yourself, not just complying with the wishes of other people.”

— Matt Groening

14. “I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me.”

— Matt Groening

15. “I’m normally not a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me, Superman. Homer Simpson.”

— Matt Groening

16. “Of course I’ve gone mad with power! Have you ever tried going mad without power? It’s boring and no one listens to you! – Russ Cargill.”

— Matt Groening

17. “I’d be vegetarian if bacon grew on trees.”

— Matt Groening

18. “Everybody is clever, just in their own ways.”

— Matt Groening

19. “The entire world of grown-ups is corrupt and stupid.”

— Matt Groening

20. “Part of the fun of being alive is knowing that you’re annoying the hell out of someone else.”

— Matt Groening

Featured in: Fun Quotes

21. “If something is too hard to do, then it’s not worth doing. You just stick that guitar in the closet next to your shortwave radio, your karate outfit and your unicycle and we’ll go inside and watch TV.”

— Matt Groening

22. “Being a good embalmer is a thankless job.”

— Matt Groening

23. “Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun.”

— Matt Groening

24. “Aren’t we forgeting the true meaning of Christmas? You know, the birth of Santa.”

— Matt Groening

25. “I judge my life by how miserable it used to be. If I could pay my rent, I was deliriously happy. Now I’m deliriously happy all the time.”

— Matt Groening

26. “God often gives nuts to toothless people.”

— Matt Groening

27. “Don’t have a cow, man.”

— Matt Groening

28. “You’ve got to embrace the future. You can whine about it, but you’ve got to embrace it.”

— Matt Groening

29. “We’ve been running a little behind schedule. But only by about 15 years or so.”

— Matt Groening

30. “Oh, loneliness and cheeseburgers are a dangerous mix.”

— Matt Groening

31. “If at first you don’t succeed – give it up. It isn’t worth the pain.”

— Matt Groening

32. “Today is the first day of the rest of your short, brutish existence as a sentient creature before being snuffed out into utter nothingness for all eternity.”

— Matt Groening

33. “I’m a level 5 vegan, I don’t eat anything that casts a shadow.”

— Matt Groening

34. “I’ll keep it short and sweet – Family. Religion. Friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business.”

— Matt Groening

35. “My standard comment is, ‘If you don’t want your kids to be like Bart Simpson, don’t act like Homer Simpson.’”

— Matt Groening

36. “How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?”

— Matt Groening

37. “The world ends when I die. And as far as I’m concerned, the rest of the universe might as well call it a day too.”

— Matt Groening

38. “Are we alone in an uncaring universe, or is God some kind of wiseguy?”

— Matt Groening

39. “I plead alignment to the flakes of the untitled snakes of a merry cow and to the republicrats for which they scam: one nacho, underpants with licorice and jugs of wine for owls.”

— Matt Groening

40. “Nihilism in American comedy came along way before ‘The Simpsons.’ There was a fairly nihilistic point of view to ‘Saturday Night Live,’ for instance, back in the beginning, and a lot of really dark comedy had a really anti-sentimental take on life.”

— Matt Groening

41. “With ‘Futurama,’ I wanted to do unrequited love, and David Cohen agreed, and although our original plan was never to have Fry and Leela get together, we finally just said, ‘You can only string the fans along so far.’”

— Matt Groening

42. “Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.”

— Matt Groening

43. “But Marge, what if we chose the wrong religion? Each week we just make God madder and madder.”

— Matt Groening

44. “Our solution on ‘The Simpsons’ is to do jokes that people who have an education, or some frame of reference, can get. And for the ones who don’t, it doesn’t matter, because we have Homer banging his head and saying, ‘D’oh!’”

— Matt Groening

45. “I think ‘Family Guy’ and ‘American Dad’ have definitely staked out their own style and territory, and now the accusations are coming that ‘The Simpsons’ is taking jokes from ‘Family Guy.’ And I can tell you, that ain’t the case.”

— Matt Groening

46. “A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments, soccer games, romances, best friends, location of friend’s houses, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.”

— Matt Groening

47. “Let’s face it, all the good stuff happens after midnight.”

— Matt Groening

48. “I would prefer to listen to a French classical composer like Olivier Messiaen than to the pop hits of the day.”

— Matt Groening

49. “I don’t have to be careful, I’ve got a gun.”

— Matt Groening

50. “Back in high school, I wrote a novel about a character named Bart Simpson. I thought it was a very unusual name for a kid at the time. I had this idea of an angry father yelling ‘Bart,’ and Bart sounds kind of like bark – like a barking dog.”

— Matt Groening