Bill Watterson Quotes

Repetition is the death of magic.

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

Mothers are the necessity of invention.

In a comic strip, you can suggest motion and time, but it's very crude compared to what an animator can do. I have a real awe for good animation.

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

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

Hey Dad, will you buy me a flame thrower? Of course not. Don't be silly. Even if I didn't use it in the house?

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.

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

Books are almost always better than the movies made from them, because there are things books do well and things movies do well, but usually those things don't overlap: the same with comics and animation.

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

Even when you look for it, you're never prepared for it.

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

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

I think hiccup cures were really invented for the amusement of the patient's friends.

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

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

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

Problems often look overwhelming at first. The secret is to break problems into small, manageable chunks. If you deal with those, you're done before you know it.

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

You know, there are times when it's a source of personal pride to not be human.

Your fingernails are a joke, you've got no fangs, you can't see at night, your pink hides are ridiculous, your reflexes are nil, and you don't even have tails! Of course people aren't content! ... Now if tigers weren't content, that would be something to wonder about.

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?

As a kid, I knew I wanted to be either a cartoonist or an astronaut. The latter was never much of a possibility, as I don't even like riding in elevators.

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

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

Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?

Every time I've built character, I've regretted it.

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

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

If you're a painter, it's simply taken for granted that you'll spend a lot of time in museums studying great paintings, but if you're a cartoonist, it used to be very hard to see an original cartoon drawing.

I've been interested in cartooning all my life. I read the comics as a kid, and I did cartoons for high school publications - the newspaper and yearbook and soon. In college, I got interested in political cartooning and did political cartoons.

Heck, what's a little extortion among friends?

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.

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

No sport is less organized than Calvinball.

As "Calvin and Hobbes" went on, the writing pushed the drawings into greater complexity. One of the jokes I really like is that the fantasies are drawn more realistically than reality, since that says a lot about what's going on in Calvin's head.

I think nighttime is dark so you can imagine your fears with less distraction.

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

Calvin the zombie searches for food. Horribly, the undead feed upon the living! ...Although, in a pinch, a PBJ will do, if you eat it messily enough.

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

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.

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!

Childhood is for spoiling adulthood.

Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!

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

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

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.