Bill Watterson quotes:

The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!

Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery.

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.

If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I'll bet they'd live a lot differently.

We don't devote enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.

Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems.

Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.

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.

If you can't control your peanut butter, you can't expect to control your life.

Nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around.

Reality continues to ruin my life.

Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery - it recharges by running.

From now on, I'll connect the dots my own way.

A real job is a job you hate.

It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.

Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world's problems?

If your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.

Heck, what's a little extortion among friends?

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

Cigars are all the rage, dad. You should smoke cigars! - CalvinFlatulence could be all the rage, but it would still be disgusting. - Calvin's mom

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.

I thought my life would seem more interesting with a musical score and a laugh track.

I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep everyone's expectations.

How come we play war and not peace?Too few role models.

What fun is it being cool if you can't wear a sombrero?"

When birds burp, it must taste like bugs.

God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.

Wow, it really snowed last night! Isn't it wonderful? Everything familiar has disappeared! The world looks brand new!A new year ... a fresh, clean start! It's like having a big white sheet of paper to draw on! A day full of possibilities! It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy ... let's go exploring!

Well, remember what you said, because in a day or two, I'll have a witty and blistering retort! You'll be devastated THEN"

Look! A trickle of water running through some dirt! I'd say our afternoon just got booked solid!

I like these cold, gray winter days. Days like these let you savor a bad mood.

I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification. -Calvin

What fun is it being cool if you can't wear a sombrero?

Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend.

Planet Bog - Pools of toxic chemicals bubble under a choking atmosphere of poisonous gases... but aside from that, it's not much like Earth.

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

A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new experience, I think you'll find it functions as a sort of shock absorber for the bumpy road ahead.

That's the whole problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder.

Often it takes some calamity to make us live in the present. Then suddenly we wake up and see all the mistakes we have made.

I won't eat any cereal that doesn't turn the milk purple.

Calvin: Dad where do babies come from? Dad: Well Calvin, you simply go to Sears, buy the kit and follow the assembly instructions. Calvin: I came from Sears? Dad: No you were a blue-light special at K-Mart - almost as good and a lot cheaper!

I say if a novelty Christmas song is funny one time, then it is funny every time. - Calvin

Blustery cold days should be spend propped up in bed with a mug of hot chocolate and a pile of comic books.

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

The world of a comic strip ought to be a special place with its own logic and life... I don't want the issue of Hobbes's reality settled by a doll manufacturer.

CALVIN: Our hero regains consciousness at the feet of a sarcastic alien.

Hobbes: What are you doing? Calvin: Being "cool." Hobbes: You look more like you're being bored. Calvin: The world bores you when you're cool. Hobbes: Look, I brought a sombrero! Now we can both be "cool." Calvin: A sombrero?! Are you crazy?! Cool people don't wear sombreros! Hobbes: What fun is it being cool if you can't wear a sombrero?

Calvin: Medically speaking:. That's love?!?..... Hobbes: Heck, that happened to me once, but I figured it was cooties!!

Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.

I learned about what I love. Imagination, deep friendship, animals, family, the natural world, ideas and ideals ... and silliness.

Well, remember what you said, because in a day or two, I'll have a witty and blistering retort! You'll be devastated THEN

A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.

There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do.

That's the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!

Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer.... Who'd have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously?

Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak. Probably so we can think twice.

So, what's it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don't recommend it.

There are no restrictions of taste, approach, or subject matter. The gatekeepers are gone, so the prospect for new and different voices is exciting. Or at least it will be if anyone reads them. And it will be even more exciting if anyone pays for them. It's hard to charge admission without a gate.

I asked mom if I was a gifted child. She said they certainly wouldn't have paid for me.

Of course, REAL zombies never get the giggles when they look at each other...

Hee hee hee! You should've seen the look on your face!" "If mom and dad cared about me at all, they'd buy me some infra-red nighttime vision goggles.

Hold it. You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see the three bears eat the three little pigs, and then the bears join up with the big bad wolf and eat Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood! Tell me a story like that, OK?

You know, sometimes kids get bad grades in school because the class moves too slow for them. Einstein got D's in school. Well guess what, I get F's!!!

I guess I just don't have the killer instinct that I think makes a great political cartoonist.

Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure.

We're so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us that we don't take time to enjoy where we are.

My likely historical significance is a terrible burden. ~ Calvin

You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don't help.

Calvin: Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man? Hobbes: I'm not sure man needs the help.

Hobbes: Do you think there's a God? Calvin: Well, somebody's out to get me!

A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.

It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy... Let's go exploring!

Calvin: Know what I pray for? Hobbes: What? Calvin: The strength to change what I can, the inability to accept what I can't, and the incapacity to tell the difference.

Calvin : There's no problem so awful, that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse.

I've been thinking Hobbes" "On a weekend?" "Well, it wasn't on purpose

Scientific Progress goes boink?

Until you stalk and overrun, you cannot devour anyone. -Hobbes

Virtual reality has nothing on Calvin.

We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery - it recharges by running.

Too often cartoonists just look at other cartoonists and, after a lot of inbreeding, everyone has the same funny look. The challenge of drawing is that there is no one right way to visually describe something. It's a good thing to confront your limitations and preconceptions every so often.

Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?

Like delicate lace, So the threads intertwine, Oh, gossamer web Of wond'rous design! Such beauty and grace Wild nature produces... Ughh, look at the spider Suck out that bug's juices!

When life gives you lemons, chunk it right back.

Life is full of surprises, but never when you need one.

It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.

Calvin: Trick or Treat! Adult: Where's your costume? What are you supposed to be? Calvin: I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet, raised to an alarming extent by Madison Avenue and Hollywood, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak! ...Boy, am I scary or what?

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

I'm a misunderstood genius." "What's misunderstood?" "Nobody thinks I'm a genius.

I'm a misunderstood genius.

I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts.

Ms. Wormwood: Calvin, can you tell us what Lewis and Clark did? Calvin: No, but I can recite the secret superhero origin of each member of Captain Napalm's Thermonuclear League of Liberty. Ms. Wormwood: See me after class, Calvin. Calvin: [retrospectively] I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.

All the new media will inevitably change the look, function, and maybe even the purpose of comics, but comics are vibrant and versatile, so I think they'll continue to find relevance one way or another. But they definitely won't be the same as what I grew up with.

People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children.

I guess I have a gift for expressing pedestrian tastes. In a way, it's kind of depressing.

I always think of "Popeye" and "Barney Google" as quintessential comic strips in that old rollicky, slapstick way we've sort of lost.

Hey Susie Derkins, is that your face, or is a 'possum stuck in your collar?

We consume everything like potato chips. In this environment, I suspect the cartoonist's connection with readers is likely to be superficial and fleeting, unless he taps into some fervent special interest niche. And that audience, almost by definition, will be tiny.

Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles.

I wish I had more friends, but people are such jerks. If you can just get most people to leave you alone, you're doing good. If you can find even one person you really like, you're lucky. And if that person can also stand you, you're really lucky.

It's always better to leave the party early.

CALVIN: This whole Santa Claus thing just doesn't make sense. Why all the secrecy? Why all the mystery? If the guy exists why doesn't he ever show himself and prove it? And if he doesn't exist what's the meaning of all this? HOBBES: I dunno. Isn't this a religious holiday? CALVIN: Yeah, but actually, I've got the same questions about God.

Mom and dad say I should make my life an example of the principles I believe in. But every time I do, they tell me to stop it.

MOMMMM, I'm thirsty... What's this, just water?

In the short term, it would make me happy to go play outside. In the long term, it would make me happier to do well at school and become successful. But in the VERY long term, I know which will make better memories.

Calvin is hammering nails into coffee table.Mom: CALVIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE COFFEE TABLE?!?Calvin: Is this some sort of trick question, or what?

The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.

History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.

Cigars are all the rage, dad. You should smoke cigars!" - Calvin"Flatulence could be all the rage, but it would still be disgusting." - Calvin's mom

That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse.

On gray days, when it's snowing or raining, I think you should be able to call up a judge and take an oath that you'll just read a good book all day, and he'd allow you to stay home.

I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know.

You can present the material, but you can't make me care.

Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?

BE CAREFUL, OR BE ROADKILL!

To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.

I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep my expectations.

The whole idea of hobknobbing and schmoozing and the concept of an "elite" class of celebrities better than the common people has always made my stomach turn.

The secret to happiness is short-term, stupid self-interest!