From Sherman Alexie’s 2007 novel; here’s two awkward, troubled kids talking to each other:

“What’s your point ?” Gordy asked.

“I take them seriously. I use them to understand the world. I use them to make fun of the world. To make fun of people. And sometimes I draw people because they’re my friends and family. And I want to honor them.”

“So you take your cartoons as seriously as you take books?”

“Yeah, I do, ” I said, “that’s kind of pathetic, isn’t it?”

“No, not at all, ” Gordy said. “If you’re good at it, and you love it, and it helps you navigate the river of the world, then it can’t be wrong.”

Wow, this dude was a poet.

Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2007).