Top 250 Bill Watterson Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “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.””

— Bill Watterson

202. “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

203. “I think hiccup cures were really invented for the amusement of the patient’s friends.”

— Bill Watterson

204. “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

Featured in: Reading Quotes

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

— Bill Watterson

206. “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.”

— Bill Watterson

207. “Oh lovely snowball, packed with care, smack a head that’s unaware! Then with freezing ice to spare, melt and soak through underwear! Fly straight and true, hit hard and square! This, oh snowball, is my prayer. I only throw consecrated snowballs.”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

209. “We don’t value craftsmanship anymore! All we value is ruthless efficiency, and I say we deny our own humanity that way! Without appreciation for grace and beauty, there’s no pleasure in creating things and no pleasure in having them! Our lives are made drearier, rather than richer! How can a person take pride in his work when skill and care are considered luxuries! We’re not machines! We have a human need for craftsmanship!”

— Bill Watterson

210. “When birds burp, it must taste like bugs.”

— Bill Watterson

211. “I think comics overall would be better. I think there’s a tremendous potential to be tapped.”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

213. “For me, it’s been liberating to put myself in the mind of a fictitious six year-old each day, and rediscover my own curiosity. I’ve been amazed at how one idea leads to others if I allow my mind to play and wander.”

— Bill Watterson

214. “I’m leaking brain lubricant.”

— Bill Watterson

215. “I won’t eat any cereal that doesn’t turn the milk purple.”

— Bill Watterson

216. “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?”

— Bill Watterson

217. “It’s surprising how hard we’ll work when the work is done just for ourselves.”

— Bill Watterson

218. “The way Calvin’s brain is wired you can almost hear the fuses blowing.”

— Bill Watterson

219. “Yeah, but actually, I’ve got the same questions about God.”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

221. “CALVIN: As usual goodness hardly puts up a fight.”

— Bill Watterson

222. “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

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

— Bill Watterson

224. “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

225. “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.”

— Bill Watterson

226. “Few things are less comforting than a tiger who’s up too late.”

— Bill Watterson

227. “I hope some historian will confirm that I was the first cartoonist to use the word ‘booger’ in a newspaper comic strip.”

— Bill Watterson

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

228. “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.”

— Bill Watterson

229. “Miss Wormwood: Calvin, your test was an absolute disgrace! It’s obvious you haven’t read any of the material. Our first president was not Chef Boy-Ar-Dee and you ought to be ashamed to have turned in such preposterous answers! Calvin: I just don’t test well.”

— Bill Watterson

230. “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

231. “Even when you look for it, you’re never prepared for it.”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

233. “We don’t devote enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.”

— Bill Watterson

234. “I’m pulling out different aspects of my personality in writing each character and, if I’m doing my job well, I’m being true to the situation and true to the character.”

— Bill Watterson

235. “But for my own example, I’d never believe one little kid could have so much brains!”

— Bill Watterson

236. “I chose to tell the story visually, so that anyone of any age, from any country, could understand it.”

— Bill Watterson

Featured in: Quotes About Stories, Country Quotes

237. “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.”

— Bill Watterson

238. “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.”

— Bill Watterson

239. “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.”

— Bill Watterson

240. “It’s only work if somebody makes you do it.”

— Bill Watterson

241. “I’m willing to take the blame if the strip goes down the drain, and I want the credit if it succeeds. So long as it has my name on it, I want it to be mine.”

— Bill Watterson

242. “I’d hate to have a kid like me.”

— Bill Watterson

243. “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.”

— Bill Watterson

244. “I still read newspaper comics, but without much hope for their future.”

— Bill Watterson

245. “I’ve nearly started!”

— Bill Watterson

246. “Any kid that never fantasized about blowing up his school never really went there.”

— Bill Watterson

247. “If comics need to be deconstructed and explained, something is really wrong with them.”

— Bill Watterson

248. “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

249. “Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.”

— Bill Watterson

250. “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