Stephen Hillenburg Quotes

Stephen Hillenburg

Profession : Actor

Birth : August 21, 1961

You have to imagine you write a show about a sponge and you think that maybe a few people will think it is funny, some college students, but it takes off. It is truly shocking - to the point where it is bizarre.

Stephen Hillenburg

Our characters act silly, even totally ridiculous at times, and most of our jokes don't come out of pop cultural references. It seems like we're aiming at a child audience, but everyone can laugh at the basic human traits that are funny. It's playful, the humor is playful, the world is playful. You can kind of let go.

Stephen Hillenburg

The characters are likable. Even the villainous Plankton - he's still flawed, and you still root for him, in a way, and the style of humor is simple, and it's about human behavior, and everybody can identify with that.

Stephen Hillenburg

You don't want to work on a job where you're looking at your watch.

Stephen Hillenburg

I was planning on being a starving artist.

Stephen Hillenburg

I wanted people to hear directly from me that I have been diagnosed with ALS.

Stephen Hillenburg

One night, I was really beat; we worked really late and went to get food at some takeout place. And I leaned over against this gumball machine, just exhausted, and there was a SpongeBob looking back at me. And it's just, like, 'Oh, brother.'

Stephen Hillenburg

The main thing about SpongeBob is that he celebrates innocence. His outlook on life is very optimistic and earnest, and I think kids relate to that. He has a creative spark in the same way children are very creative from an open and naive perspective.

Stephen Hillenburg

I see SpongeBob on ice-cream trucks a lot, and I've got bootleg SpongeBob merchandise from Mexico.

Stephen Hillenburg

Anyone who knows me knows that I will continue to work on 'SpongeBob SquarePants' and my other passions for as long as I am able.

Stephen Hillenburg

I pitched the idea that SpongeBob and Patrick learn a swearword. Everyone said no. I couldn't even use a bleep. So I used a dolphin sound instead.

Stephen Hillenburg

It's not like the computer magically does it for you. Animation just takes forever.

Stephen Hillenburg

I studied natural resources planning and thought I could get a job at some marine park. But I was great at art and so-so at marine biology. It's funny how the two eventually came together.

Stephen Hillenburg

I do think that the attitude of the show is about tolerance. Everybody is different, and the show embraces that. The character SpongeBob is an oddball. He's kind of weird, but he's kind of special.

Stephen Hillenburg

I never imagined that I'd end up in animation, but marine biology and art collided, and here we are!

Stephen Hillenburg

Everybody's got some fascination with undersea life, don't you think?

Stephen Hillenburg

I studied marine biology, even taught marine science before I got into animation, so I had an interest in that field and those animals.

Stephen Hillenburg

I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one.

Stephen Hillenburg

I never really imagined a show about a sponge going past our first season. I thought maybe we'd have a cult following, and we'd be gone after one season.

Stephen Hillenburg

To be honest, there is a special gift for doing voice-overs, and the people who did the voices in the 'SpongeBob' cast are excellent at cartoon voice-overs, and they bring something extra to the reads.

Stephen Hillenburg