Bill Watterson Quotes

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“Calvin:"It says here that 'religion is the opiate of the masses.'… what do you suppose that means?"
Television: "… it means that Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet”

“You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet could be running loose in your pants.”

“I wonder where we go when we die?”
“…Pittsburgh?”
“You mean if we’re good or if we’re bad?”

“I must follow the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.”

“Susie: The way Calvin's brain is wired, you can almost hear the fuses blowing.
p64”

“What's the point of wearing your favorite rocket ship underpants if nobody ever asks to see 'em?”

“Even if lives did hang in the balance, it would depend on whose they were.”

“From now on I’ll connect the dots my own way.”

“Calvin: But for my own example, I'd never believe one little kid could have so much brains!
p182”

“Mothers are the necessity of invention.”

“Boy, there's nothing worse than an inscrutable omen.”

“Know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change. But pretty soon, everything's different.”

“I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.”

“Calvin's Dad: It's going to be a grim day when the world is run by a generation that doesn't know anything but what it's seen on TV.
p100”

“Until you stalk and overrun, you cannot devour anyone.

-Hobbes”

“Scientific Progress goes boink?”

“Good friends are hard to come by.. I need more money.”

“You know what's the rage this year?… Hats.”

“It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves.”

“They say the world is a stage. But obviously the play is unrehearsed and everybody is ad-libbing his lines."
"Maybe that’s why it’s hard to tell if we’re living in a tragedy or a farce."
"We need more special effects and dance numbers.”

“Virtual reality has nothing on Calvin.”

“Paul Gauguin asked, "whence do we come? What are we? Where are we going?" Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I came from my room, I'm a kid with big plans, and I'm going outside! See ya later! Say, who the heck is Paul Gauguin anyway?”

“My likely historical significance is a terrible burden. ~ Calvin”

“Never argue with a six-year-old who shaves.”

“I hope some historian will confirm that I was the first cartoonist to use the word 'booger' in a newspaper comic strip.”

“Calvin: I'm a genius. I can't believe how smart I am.
… I've got more brains than I know what to do with.
Hobbes: So I've noticed.”

“Sleepwalking?"
"Nightmare?"
"Homicidal psycho jungle cat!”

“So long, Pop! I'm off to check my tiger trap!”

“Calvin: Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend.
p77”

“I'm resolving to just wing it and see what happens.”

“Calvin: If you do the job badly enough, sometimes you don't get asked to do it again.
p55”

“Dad: Honey, have you seen my glasses? I can"t find them.
Mom: I haven't seen them.
Calvin: (with glasses, to Dad) Calvin, go do something you hate! Being miserable builds character!”

“The more you think about things, the weirder they seem. Take this milk. Why do we drink COW milk?? Who was the guy who first looked at a cow and said, 'I think I'll drink whatever comes out of these things when I squeeze 'em!'?”

“You can make your superhero a psychopath, you can draw gut-splattering violence, and you can call it a "graphic novel," but comic books are still incredibly stupid.”

“The only permanent rule in Calvinball is that you can never play it the same way twice! (Calvin)”

“I'm a man of few words."
"If you read more, you might have a larger vocabulary.”

“I should be doing my homework now. But the way I look at it, playing in the snow is a lot more important. Out here I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life.

- Such as?

- Procrastination and rationalization.”

“Calvin: It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
p62”

“MOMMMM, I'm thirsty… What's this, just water?”

“Ah, the life of a newspaper cartoonist -- how I miss the groupies, drugs and trashed hotel rooms!”

“It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now "grieving" for "Calvin and Hobbes" would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them.”

“The only part I understand is what went into the creation of the strip. What readers take away from it is up to them. Once the strip is published, readers bring their own experiences to it, and the work takes on a life of its own. Everyone responds differently to different parts. I just tried to write honestly, and I tried to make this little world fun to look at, so people would take the time to read it. That was the full extent of my concern. You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens. I can't explain why the strip caught on the way it did, and I don't think I could ever duplicate it. A lot of things have to go right all at once.”

“Calvin: Somewhere in Communist Russia, I'll bet there's a little boy who has never known anything but censorship and oppression. But maybe he's heard of America, and he dreams of living in this land of freedom and opportunity! Someday, I'd like to meet that little boy…and tell him the awful TRUTH ABOUT THIS PLACE!!
Calvin's Dad: Calvin, be quiet and eat the stupid Lima beans.”