Bill Watterson Quotations | Page 3

I'll bet my autopsy reveals my mouth is too big.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I have all these great genes, but they're recessive. That's the problem here.

It must be hard to cook if you anthropomorphisize your vegetables.

I wasn't having any luck getting accepted anyway and it forced me to re-examine what it was that I really wanted to do. In my experience in political cartooning, I was never one of those people who read the headlines and foams at the mouth with rabid opinion that I've just got to get down on paper.

Well, coming at a new work requires a certain amount of patience and energy, and there’s always the risk of disappointment. You can’t really blame people for preferring more of what they already know and like. The trade-off, of course, is that predictability is boring. Repetition is the death of magic.

Leader, bandits at 2 o'clock! Roger; it's only 1:30 now-what'll I do 'til then?

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.

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

Yeah, but actually, I've got the same questions about God.

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.

Why does man create? Is it man's purpose on earth to express himself, to bring form to thought, and to discover meaning in experience? Or is it just something to do when he's bored?

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

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.

I can never enjoy Sundays, because in the back of my mind I always know I've got to go to school the next day. It's like trying to enjoy your last meal before the execution.

Art has to keep moving and discovering to stay alive.

I've never sat down to quantify how many hours I actually spend on the strip. I use the deadlines to estimate my progress; each month I know that I have to produce so many strips, and by the end of the month I'll make sure that I have.

A box of new crayons! Now they’re all pointy, lined up in order, bright and perfect. Soon they’ll be a bunch of ground down, rounded, indistinguishable stumps, missing their wrappers and smudged with other colors. Sometimes life seems unbearably tragic.

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

I was reading about how countless species are being pushed toward extinction by man's destruction of forests. . . . Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.

Mom’s not feeling well. So I’m making her a get well card.” “That’s thoughtful of you.” "See, on the front it says, ‘Get Well Soon’ … and on the inside it says,’Because my bed isn’t made, my clothes need to be put away and I’m hungry. Love Calvin.’ Want to sign it?” “Sure, I’m hungry too

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.

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

Reading goes faster if you don't sweat comprehension.

Surprise is the essence of humor, and nothing is more surprising than truth.

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.

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

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

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

If you give a little credit to the concept of the artist, I think you ought to indulge excesses a bit, because that reflects the personality of the writer. Now if a joke is in bad taste or it's not funny, okay, that's awhole different thing, but how you craft a joke is really what the writer's job is, and I don't think that technique should be subject to any editorial constraints.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

They can't chain my spirit! My spirit runs free! Walls can't contain it! Laws can't restrain it! Authority has no power over it!

The score is still Q to 12!

Obviously the role of comics is changing very fast. On the one hand, comics are widely accepted and taken seriously. On the other hand, the mass media is disintegrating, and audiences are atomizing. I suspect comics will have less widespread cultural impact and make a lot less money.

In the right hands, a comic strip attains a beauty and elegance that, really, I would put against any other art.

Since September it's just gotten colder and colder. There's less daylight now, I've noticed too. This can only mean one thing - the sun is going out. In a few more months the Earth will be a dark and lifeless ball of ice. Dad says the sun isn't going out. He says its colder because the earth's orbit is taking us farther from the sun. He says winter will be here soon. 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?

I think comics overall would be better. I think there's a tremendous potential to be tapped.

Calvin: The more you know, the harder it is to take decisive action. Once you are informed, you start seeing complexities and shades of gray. You realize nothing is as clear as it first appears. Ultimately, knowledge is paralyzing. Being a man of action, I cannot afford to take that risk. Hobbes: You're ignorant, but at least you act on it.

I'M SIGNIFICANT!!! ... Say's the dust speck.

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?

I don't enjoy lettering very much, but that's the way I write and that belongs in the strip because the strip is a reflection of me.

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

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

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!!!

County library? Reference desk, please. Hello? Yes, I need a word definition. Well, that's the problem. I don't know how to spell it and I'm not allowed to say it. Could you just rattle off all the swear words you know and I'll stop you when...Hello?

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.

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

When life gives you lemons, chunk it right back.

If people looked at the stars each night, they'd live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.

The strips I admire go farther than a gag a day, and take us into a special world.

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

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

I'd like to see cartoonists measuring their work by higher standards than how many papers their strips are in and how much money they make.

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

You know, sometimes the world seems like a pretty mean place.' 'That's why animals are so soft and huggy.

I'd always enjoyed the comics more, and felt that as long as I was unemployed it would be a good chance to pursue that and see what response I could get from asyndicate, as I didn't have anything to lose at that point. So I drew up a comic strip - this was in 1980 - and sent it off and got rejected. I continued that for five years with different comic strip examples 'til finally Calvin and Hobbes came together. But it's been a long road.

People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children.

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

The problem with people is that they're only human.

It's gratifying to hear that from people who care about comic art. I never know what to make of it when someone writes to say, "Calvin and Hobbes is the best strip in the paper. I like it even more than Nancy."

I tell you all this because it's worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few.

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.

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.

If you've got more ambiguous characters or stock stereotypes, the plastic comes through and they don't work as well.

My likely historical significance is a terrible burden. ~ Calvin

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

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

United Features had given me a development contract, which meant I was to work exclusively with them and rather than completing everything on my own and turning it in to them and having it rejected or accepted, I was working much more directly with the syndicate, turning in smaller batches much more frequently, and getting comments on them. The idea was that they would help me develop the strip and then, assuming that they liked it, it would flow into a normal contract for syndication.

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.

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.

Mothers are the necessity of invention.

Reality continues to ruin my life.

Garry Trudeau is the only cartoonist with the clout to get his strip published large enough to accomodate extended dialogue. It's ashame.

My guess is that the editor [Cincinnati Post] wanted his own Jeff MacNelly (a Pulitzer winner at 24), and I didn't live up to his expectations. My Cincinnati days were pretty Kafkaesque.

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?

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

People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.

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

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

I'm learning skills I will use for the rest of my life by doing homework...procrastinating and negotiation.

Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.

I'm killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness.

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

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.

Who was the guy who first looked at a cow and said 'I think I’ll drink whatever comes out of these when I squeeze ’em?

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

Each kind of story has its own problems in writing, but my main concern really is to keep the reader on his toes, or to keep the strip unpredictable. I try to achieve some sort of balance between the two that keeps the reader wondering what's going to happen next and be surprised.

If good things lasted forever, would we appreciate how precious they are?

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

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.