Mort Walker on his creative juices

WALKER: ...I've got my doggone, stupid creative juices flowing all the time. I'll wake up at night and write a poem. I'll wake up the next day and write a children's book. The next day I'll do a comic strip. I just can't stop it, but that's the joy in life to me. My father always did it, and I guess I've got his genes in me. My father woke up every morning and did some writing or painting or something. He originally was a farmer, and turned into an architect and artist and writer, and he was always up at farmer's hours. Before the office opened, he would create something. So I grew up in that atmosphere.
MARSCHALL: It's not work; it's what you do.
WALKER: It's a feeling of leaving something behind, of accomplishing something every day. I hate it if I go to bed at night and haven't done something that's there, that I can look at. I take a lot of pride in it sometimes, but the greatest joy is creating something out of nothing. There's a piece of paper, and an hour later it's a beautiful work of art, it's a story, what- ever.but I think it's probably going to be my death knell.
MARSCHALL: Why in the world?
WALKER: I run everybody ragged. My kids say, "Oh, Dad! Not another strip! Oh, Dad! Not another greeting card company! Not another book company!" Whatever do, make everybody weary around me. MARSCHALL: Except yourself.
WALKER: They say that when they bury me, they're going to have to rip the pencil from my hand, that I'll be creating another strip on the way to the cemetery.