Top 250 Bill Watterson Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “Calvin: Life’s a lot more fun when you aren’t responsible for your actions.”

— Bill Watterson

Featured in: Fun Quotes

152. “Cleveland is a really hard place, it’s a very creative place, it feeds you creatively, but it’s a very hard place to make a living creatively.”

— Bill Watterson

153. “When the cartoonist is trying to talk honestly and seriously about life, then I believe he has a responsibility to think beyond satisfying the market’s every whim and desire.”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

155. “Dad says that the anticipation of having something is often more fun than actually having it – Calvin.”

— Bill Watterson

156. “I guess I just don’t have the killer instinct that I think makes a great political cartoonist.”

— Bill Watterson

157. “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.”

— Bill Watterson

158. “Imagination is not always appreciated.”

— Bill Watterson

159. “Van Gogh would’ve sold more than one painting if he’d put tigers in them.”

— Bill Watterson

160. “Reading goes faster if you don’t sweat comprehension.”

— Bill Watterson

Featured in: Reading Quotes

161. “Hello Dad! It is now three in the morning. Do you know where I am?”

— Bill Watterson

162. “Heck, what’s a little extortion among friends?”

— Bill Watterson

163. “Nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around.”

— Bill Watterson

164. “I know the world isn’t fair, but why isn’t it ever unfair in my favor?”

— Bill Watterson

165. “I like my smock. You can tell the quality of the artist by the quality of his smock. Actually, I just like to say smock. Smock smock smock smock smock smock.”

— Bill Watterson

166. “So the secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they’re already met?”

— Bill Watterson

167. “The secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that’s even worse.”

— Bill Watterson

168. “For your information, I’m staying like this, and everyone else can just get used to it! If people don’t like me the way I am, well TOUGH BEANS! It’s a free country! I don’t need anyone’s permission to be the way I want! This is who I am – Take it or leave it!”

— Bill Watterson

169. “It’s a cruel season that makes you get ready for bed while it’s light out.”

— Bill Watterson

170. “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.”

— Bill Watterson

171. “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

172. “You know, there are times when it’s a source of personal pride to not be human.”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

Featured in: Fun Quotes

174. “What assurance do I have that your parenting isn’t screwing me up?”

— Bill Watterson

175. “Look! A trickle of water running through some dirt! I’d say our afternoon just got booked solid!”

— Bill Watterson

176. “Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?”

— Bill Watterson

177. “You are demoted from First Tiger to bulk rate.”

— Bill Watterson

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

178. “I keep forgetting that rules are only for little nice people.”

— Bill Watterson

179. “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.”

— Bill Watterson

180. “In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive.”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

184. “But Calvin is no kind and loving god! He’s one of the old gods! He demands sacrifice!”

— Bill Watterson

185. “Nowadays, ads don’t just sell a product. They sell an attitude! Look at this one! Here’s a cool guy saying nobody tells him what to do. He does whatever he wants and he buys this product as a reflection of that independence. So basically, this maverick is urging everyone to express his individuality through conformity in brand-name selection?”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

187. “I’ll bet my autopsy reveals my mouth is too big.”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

Featured in: Fun Quotes

189. “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

190. “Happiness is being famous for your financial ability to indulge in every kind of excess.”

— Bill Watterson

191. “I’ve always been a huge fan of fantasy and adventure, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, I’m sure that’s why I’m an actor. It’s why I played with action figures as a kid, that’s why I wrote and drew and read comics as a kid.”

— Bill Watterson

192. “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

193. “Specifically, I’d like to debate whether cannibalism ought to be grounds for leniency in murders, since it’s less wasteful.”

— Bill Watterson

194. “I don’t think I’d have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if I’d known the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed.”

— Bill Watterson

195. “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.”

— Bill Watterson

196. “Instead of asking what’s wrong with rampant consumerism, we ought to be asking, ‘What justifies it?’ Popular art does not have to pander to the lowest level of intelligence and taste.”

— Bill Watterson

197. “I write separately from the inking up. I’m sure this varies from cartoonist to cartoonist; I find that the writing is the hard part and the drawing is the fun part.”

— Bill Watterson

Featured in: Fun Quotes

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

— Bill Watterson

199. “I think most of us would be horrified to meet ourselves and discover what everyone else already knows about us.”

— Bill Watterson

200. “MOMMMM, I’m thirsty... What’s this, just water?”

— Bill Watterson