Bill Watterson Quotes & Sayings

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

For no reason I can think of, I've wandered far astray. And that is how I got to where I find myself today. — Bill Watterson

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. — Bill Watterson

Boy, there's nothing worse than an inscrutable omen. — Bill Watterson

Cincinnati at that time was also beginning to realize it had major cartooning talent in Jim Borgman, at the city's other paper, and I didn't benefit from the comparison.His footsteps seemed like good ones to follow, so I cultivated an interest in politics, and Borgman helped me a lot in learning how to construct an editorial cartoon. Neither of us dreamed I'd end up in the same town on the opposite paper. — Bill Watterson

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

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

In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks. — Bill Watterson

It's not the medium, but the quality of perception and expression, that determines the significance of art. — Bill Watterson

You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
What mood is that?
Last-minute panic. — Bill Watterson

Mom says death is as natural as birth, and it's all part of the life cycle.
She says we don't really understand it, but there are many things we don't understand, and we just have to do the best we can with the knowledge we have.
I guess that makes sense. — Bill Watterson

There are few things less comforting than a tiger who's been up too late. — Bill Watterson

I enjoy the drawing more than the writing, so I try to think of ideas that will allow me to develop the visual side of the strip as fully as possible. — Bill Watterson

Some days you get up and you already know that things aren't going to go well. They're the type of days when you should just give in, put your pajamas back on, make some hot chocolate and read comic books in bed with the covers up until the world looks more encouraging. Of course, they never let you do that. — Bill Watterson

It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. — Bill Watterson

The best presents don't come in boxes. — Bill Watterson

Susie: Hi Calvin! Aren't you excited about going to school? Look at all these great school supplies I got! I love having new notebooks and stuff!
Calvin:All I've got to say is they're not making me learn any foreign languages. If English is good enough for me, then by golly, it's good enough for the rest of the world! Everyone should just speak English or shut up, that's what I say!
Susie: You should maybe check the chemical content of your breakfast cereal. — Bill Watterson

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

If you have the personalities down, you understand them and identify with them; you can stick them in any situation and have a pretty good idea of how they're going to respond. Then it's just a matter of sanding and polishing up the jokes. But if you've got more ambiguous characters or stock stereotypes, the plastic comes through and they don't work as well. These two characters clicked for me almost immediately and I feel very comfortable working with them. — Bill Watterson

Isn't it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humor? — Bill Watterson

Idiocy is the essence of the male mind. — Bill Watterson

Quick! To the Bat-Fax! — Bill Watterson

I wish people were more like animals. Animals don't try to change you or make you fit in. They just enjoy the pleasure of your company. Animals aren't conditional about friendships. Animals like you just the way you are. They listen to your problems, they comfort you when you're sad, and all they ask in return is a little kindness. — Bill Watterson

The more words you have at your disposal, the more precisely you can express yourself. — Bill Watterson

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 — Bill Watterson

I've got plenty of common sense! I just choose to ignore it. — Bill Watterson

Calvin: ME TARZAN! KING OF JUNGLE!
Suzy: Nice underpants. Does your mom know you're over here like this?
Calvin: ... I don't think Jane EVER said that to Tarzan. — Bill Watterson

Saturday morning cartoons do that now, where they develop the toy and then draw the cartoon around it, and the result is the cartoon is a commercial for the toy and the toy is a commercial for the cartoon. The same thing's happening now in comic strips; it's just another way to get the competitive edge. You saturate all the different markets and allow each other to advertise the other, and it's the best of all possible worlds. You can see the financial incentive to work that way. I just think it's to the detriment of integrity in comic strip art. — Bill Watterson

Hello Dad! It is now three in the morning. Do you know where I am? — Bill Watterson

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

I'm a man of few words."
"If you read more, you might have a larger vocabulary. — Bill Watterson

Reality continues to ruin my life. — Bill Watterson

Everybody I know fails the acid test of friendship. — Bill Watterson

I'd hate to have a kid like me. — Bill Watterson

CALVIN:
When I grow up I want to be an inventor. First I will invent a time machine. Then I'll come back to yesterday and take myself to tomorrow and skip this dumb assignment. — Bill Watterson

They say the secret of success is being at the right place at the right time, but since you never know when the right time is going to be, I figure the trick is to find the right place and just hang around. — Bill Watterson

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 wonder which YOU are. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles! — Bill Watterson

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

Don't look into car headlights and freeze, because you'll either get run over or shot! — Bill Watterson

You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens. — Bill Watterson

I suppose it will all make sense when we grow up. — Bill Watterson

You know what's the rage this year? ...Hats. — Bill Watterson

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

You can draw a penguin on a toilet reading The New York Times and it's adorable, but try doing it with an adult male character, and it's disgusting. — Bill Watterson

[Calvin, who has the chicken pox, calls Susie on the telephone.]
Susie: Hello?
Calvin: Hi, Susie! It's me, Calvin! I was wondering if you'd like to come over and play.
Susie: Why, sure! Boy, I don't think you've ever invited me to ...
Calvin's Mom: Calvin, what are you doing?
Calvin: Nothing, Mom. Go away.
Calvin's Mom: You're contagious! You can't have anyone over to play!
Calvin: Shhhh! Shhhh! You'll spoil the whole thing! I was going to trick Susie into catching ... HEY! OW! LET GO!
Susie: [Hanging up the phone] Any chance of getting transferred, Dad? — Bill Watterson

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

CALVIN:
Isn't it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humor?
When you think about it, it's weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it's funny.
Don't you think it's odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us?
HOBBES:
I suppose if we couldn't laugh at the things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life. — Bill Watterson

How come we play war and not peace?" "Too few role models. — Bill Watterson

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. — Bill Watterson

Years from now, when I'm successful and happy, ... and he's in prison ... I hope I'm not too mature to gloat. — Bill Watterson

You know what I like about summer days? They're just made for doing things ... even if it's nothing. Especially if it's nothing. — Bill Watterson

Wake up, get up ... Shut up. Listen up ... Throw up ... Mix up, Goof up ... Hurry up ... "
"How's your day?"
"Looking up. — Bill Watterson

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. — Bill Watterson

I have enough friends who are gamers. I actually enjoy watching them play because of the visuals and the storytelling of the games. I just love being able to go on an adventure and games are just so sophisticated now that you can just get lost in a world for 20 hours and just be someone else in a very visceral, emotional way. And that's just fascinating. — Bill Watterson

I've always tried to make the strip animated, even when the characters aren't moving, with expressions or perspectives or some sort of exaggeration. There's great potential for that which has yet to be fully mined. — Bill Watterson

The writing doesn't distract me while I'm drawing and vice versa. I can devote my full attention to each. — Bill Watterson

Hobbes: Jump! Jump! Jump! I win!
Calvin: You win? Aaugghh! You won last time! I hate it when you win! Aarrggh! Mff! Gnnk! I hate this game! I hate the whole world! Aghhh! What a stupid game! You must have cheated! You must have used some sneaky, underhanded mindmeld to make me lose! I hate you! I didn't want to play this idiotic game in the first place! I knew you'd cheat! I knew you'd win! Oh! Oh! Aarg!
[Calvin runs in circles around Hobbes screaming "Aaaaaaaaaaaa", then falls over.]
Hobbes: Look, it's just a game.
Calvin: I know! You should see me when I lose in real life! — Bill Watterson

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

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

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. — Bill Watterson

From now on, I'm not doing anything I don't want to do! The world owes me happiness, fulfillment and success ... I'm just here to cash in. — Bill Watterson

Every day of my life I have to add another name to the list of people who p*ss me off
Calvin, Calvin & Hobbes — Bill Watterson

I'm crying because out there he's gone, but he's not gone inside me. — Bill Watterson

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. — Bill Watterson

[Calvin and Hobbes are playing Scrabble.]
Calvin: Ha! I've got a great word and it's on a "Double word score" box!
Hobbes: "ZQFMGB" isn't a word! It doesn't even have a vowel!
Calvin: It is so a word! It's a worm found in New Guinea! Everyone knows that!
Hobbes: I'm looking it up.
Calvin: You do, and I'll look up that 12-letter word you played with all the Xs and Js!
Hobbes: What's your score for ZQFMGB?
Calvin: 957. — Bill Watterson

Amazingly, much of the best cartoon work was done early on in the medium's history. The early cartoonists, with no path before them, produced work of such sophistication, wit, and beauty that it increasingly seems to me that cartoon evolution is working backward. Comic strips are moving toward a primordial goo rather than away from it ... Not only can comics be more than we're getting today. but the comics already have been more than we're getting today. — Bill Watterson

Genius is never understood in its own time. — Bill Watterson

As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway. — Bill Watterson

The syndicates take the strip and sell it to newspapers and split the income with the cartoonists. Syndicates are essentially agents. Now, can you imagine a novelist giving his literary agent the ownership of his characters and all reprint, television, and movie rights before the agent takes the manuscript to a publisher? Obviously, an author would have to be a raving lunatic to agree to such a deal, but virtually every cartoonist does exactly that when a syndicate demands ownership before agreeing to sell the strip to newspapers. — Bill Watterson

The secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse — Bill Watterson

Barney's Dad was really bad so Barney hatched a plan
when his dad said "Eat your peas."
Barney shouted no and ran
Barney tricked his mean old dad and locked him in the cellar
Barney's Mom never found out where he'd gone,
Cause Barney didn't tell her.
There his dad spent his life eating mice and gruel
With every bite for fifty years
he was sorry he'd been cruel — Bill Watterson

Obviously the great thing about this job is the complete freedom of the schedule. So long as I meet the deadline, they don't care when I work or how I work. — Bill Watterson

Tomorrow we'll not only seize the day, we'll throttle it. — Bill Watterson

When I get to the drawing, I really enjoy taking a big chunk of time and working on the drawing and nothing else. That allows me to make sure that I'm really challenging the art, making each picture as interesting as I can. — Bill Watterson

Scientific Progress goes boink? — Bill Watterson

Few things are less comforting than a tiger who's up too late. — Bill Watterson

Why can't the world ever be unfair in my favor? — Bill Watterson

It's a cruel season that makes you get ready for bed while it's light out. — Bill Watterson

Good friends are hard to come by.. I need more money. — Bill Watterson

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! — Bill Watterson

Let's say that life is this square of the sidewalk. We are born at this crack and we die at that crack. Now we find ourselves somewhere inside the square and in the process of walking outside of it. Suddenly, we realize our time in here is fleeting. Is our quick experience here pointless? Does anything we say or do in here really matter? Have we done anything important? Have we been happy? Have we made the most of these precious few footsteps? — Bill Watterson

I think of football as a sport the way ducks think of hunting as a sport. — Bill Watterson

The score is still Q to 12! — Bill Watterson

Calvin: Today for show and tell, I've brought a tiny miracle of nature: a single snowflake! I think we might all learn a lesson from how this utterly unique and exquisite crystal turns into an ordinary, boring molecule of water just like every other one when you bring it into the classroom.
And now, while the analogy sinks in, I will be leaving you drips and going outside ... — Bill Watterson

Form follows function, as the architects say. With words and pictures, you can do just about anything. — Bill Watterson

Is it truly being good if the only reason I behave well is so I can get more loot at Christmas? I mean, really, all I'm doing is saying I can be bribed. — Bill Watterson

I'M SIGNIFICANT!!!
...
Say's the dust speck. — Bill Watterson

You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. — Bill Watterson

As you can see, I have memorized this utterly useless piece of information long enough to pass a test question. I now intend to forget it forever. You've taught me nothing except how to cynically manipulate the system. Congratulations. — Bill Watterson

The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. — Bill Watterson

Leave it to a girl to take the fun out of sex discrimination. — Bill Watterson

My problem is that I don't paint ambitiously. It's all catch and release - just tiny fish that aren't really worth the trouble to clean and cook. — Bill Watterson

I must follow the inscrutable exhortations of my soul. — Bill Watterson

Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous? — Bill Watterson

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

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

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? — Bill Watterson

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

Leave it to a girl to take all the fun out of sex discrimination.
-Calvin — Bill Watterson

How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food and beer conglomerates. Who'd have ever guessed product consumption, popular entertainment and spirituality would mix so harmoniously. It's a beautiful world, all right. — Bill Watterson