Top 250 Bill Watterson Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “So, what’s it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don’t recommend it.”

— Bill Watterson

202. “Every time I’ve built character, I’ve regretted it.”

— Bill Watterson

203. “I’m leaking brain lubricant.”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

208. “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

209. “I always think of “Popeye” and “Barney Google” as quintessential comic strips in that old rollicky, slapstick way we’ve sort of lost.”

— Bill Watterson

210. “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

211. “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

212. “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

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

— Bill Watterson

214. “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

215. “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

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

— Bill Watterson

217. “My book is called, “Shut Up And Stop Whining: How To Do Something With Your Life Besides Think About Yourself.”

— Bill Watterson

218. “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

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

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

221. “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

222. “Calvin: Life’s a lot more fun when you aren’t responsible for your actions.”

— Bill Watterson

223. “Of course, REAL zombies never get the giggles when they look at each other...”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

225. “A real job is a job you hate.”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

227. “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

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

— Bill Watterson

229. “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

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

— Bill Watterson

231. “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

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

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

234. “I’ve nearly started!”

— Bill Watterson

235. “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

236. “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

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

— 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. “Art has to keep moving and discovering to stay alive.”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

244. “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

245. “Even if lives did hang in the balance, it would depend on whose they were.”

— Bill Watterson

246. “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

247. “I guess I have a gift for expressing pedestrian tastes. In a way, it’s kind of depressing.”

— Bill Watterson

248. “Ah, the life of a newspaper cartoonist – how I miss the groupies, drugs and trashed hotel rooms!”

— Bill Watterson

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

— Bill Watterson

250. “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