44 Years Later, The Far Side's Best Quote Is Darker And Funnier Than Ever

Published Oct 3, 2026, 2:35 PM EDT Ambrose Tardive is an editor on ScreenRant's Comics team. Over the past two years, he has developed into the internet's foremost authority on The Far Side. Outside of his work for ScreenRant, Ambrose works as an Adjunct English Instructor. Sign in to your ScreenRant account The Far Side's most timeless line of dialogue hits harder nearly 45 years after it was first published. The thing about The Far Side is, it's literature. It might not technically qualify for the "Great American Novel" conversation, but it has many of the same qualities as the works of fiction that do. And like all great literature, the Far Side cartoon can have a different impact on readers at different points in their lives. Gary Larson knew how to get a reaction out of readers. Making people laugh, shocking them, making them go, "Aw, no way he wrote that," all that was the easy part. Like the best lines in the best works of fiction, what really marks a great Far Side quote is its ability to make the reader follow their initial reaction by stepping back and pondering the larger meaning of what they just read. Larson would say there wasn't anything all that deep about The Far Side, but that's not exactly true. Because Larson was as deep a thinker as he was widely versed in science, art, literature, and history. Sometimes that manifested as pure silliness on the page, but sometimes it led to some unintentionally philosophical Far Sides. Let's take a look at one of The Far Side's earliest, most existential lines of dialogue. It came in an April 1982 cartoon, featuring a gaggle of chickens watching one of their cohort get carried off to the chopping block. Which prompts one of the hens to say something too real, and all the more hard-hitting the older readers get. The Far Side's Best Quote Makes Readers Face Their Mortality Through Humor "When it's my turn, I just hope I go quietly." Death wasn't a joke for most newspaper comics in the 1980s. The Far Side laughed at death and broke all the rules. More than that, Gary Larson made mortality his comedic subject matter with just like this one. It is one of the best Far Side chicken jokes, but it is the way it speaks to the human condition that immortalizes it in the pantheon of most unforgettable Far Side quotes. Perhaps this Far Side cartoon will make readers think about how they want to rage at the dying of the light right up until it is their time to go. The chicken speaking in this Far Side scene doesn't want to run around with its head cut off. It wants to have a little more dignity than that. Maybe readers relate to that. Maybe they want to pass on with some dignity too, or at least go peacefully. Or, maybe it's the opposite. Perhaps this Far Side cartoon will make readers think about how they want to rage at the dying of the light right up until it is their time to go. Either way, it will make readers think. And it will make them think every time they see it. That is the real achievement of what, on the surface, might be mistaken for a dumb, even obvious joke. It is a Far Side panel that sticks with you. That will affect you more and more as the years pass and you find yourself having no choice but to think about your own death more realistically. "I Just Hope I Go Quietly" Is More Than A Memorable One-Liner There are plenty of other contenders for The Far Side's best quote, of course. Certainly its darkest quote. (The lemming father threatening to drive his family off a cliff comes to mind.) But there is a difference between the reaction a Far Side joke provokes, and the reaction a reader has to that reaction. Few quotes match "I just hope I go quietly" in that regard. Because it is specifically that line of dialogue, and the delivery as the reader can imagine it, that will stick with Far Side fans and have them pulling out their copies of The Complete Far Side to revisit it every few years. What is your pick for the best Far Side quote, and why? Tell us in the comments below! Writer Gary Larson Colorist Gary Larson