CALVIN: Dad, where do babies come from?
DAD: Most people just go to Sears, buy the assembly kit, and read the instructions.
CALVIN: I CAME FROM SEARS?!?!
DAD: No, you were a Blue Light Special at Kmart. Almost as good, and a lot cheaper.
CALVIN: AAUUGHHH!
MOM: Dear, what are you telling him now?!
HOBBES: Well, the important thing is that we tried our best.
CALVIN: The important thing is that we lost!
HOBBES: Oops. I always
STUPENDOUS MAN's supendous knowledge lets him complete the test with stupendous speed! 1492! The Battle of Lexington! Trotsky! The Cotton Gin! Another triumph for virtue and right! And now, with a whoosh, STUPENDOUS MAN is off into the sky! So long kids! Always brush your teeth! KAPWINGGG!
CALVIN: I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal.
CALVIN: I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!
CALVIN: I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification.
If your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.
CALVIN: Where do we keep all our chainsaws, Mom?
CALVIN: Do you believe our destinies are determined by the stars?
HOBBES: Nah.
CALVIN: Oh, I do.
HOBBES: Really? How come?
CALVIN: Life's a lot more fun when you're not responsible for your actions.
CALVIN: God put me on Earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind I will never die.
CALVIN: Dad, how do people make babies?
DAD: Most people just 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.
CALVIN: Reality continues to ruin my life.
DAD: The world isn't fair, Calvin.
CALVIN: I know, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favor?
HOBBES: A new decade is coming up.
CALVIN: Yeah, big deal! Hmph. Where are the flying cars? Where are the Moon colonies? Where are the personal robots and the zero gravity boots, huh? You call this a new decade?! You call this the future?? Ha! Where are the rocket packs? Where are the disintegration rays? Where are the floating cities?
HOBBES: Frankly, I'm not sure people have the brains to manage the technology they've got.
CALVIN: I mean, look at this! We still have the weather?! Give me a break!
CALVIN: Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.
CALVIN: Oh, Great Altar of Passive Entertainment ... Bestow upon me thy discordant images at such speed as to render linear thought impossible!
HOBBES: Did you ask your Mom if you could jump off the roof?
CALVIN: Questions I know the answers to I don't need to ask, right?
CALVIN: I'm a genius, but I'm a misunderstood genius.
HOBBES: What's misunderstood about you?
CALVIN: Nobody thinks I'm a genius.
CALVIN: When I grow up, I'm not going to read the newspaper and I'm not going to follow complex issues and I'm not going to vote. That way I can complain when the government doesn't represent me. Then, when everything goes down the tubes, I can say the system doesn't work and justify my further lack of participation.
HOBBES: An ingeniously self-fulfilling plan.
CALVIN: It's a lot more fun to blame things than to fix them.
CALVIN: I don't know which is worse, ... that everyone has his price, or that the price is always so low.
CALVIN: If Mom and Dad cared about me at all, they'd buy me some infra-red nighttime vision goggles.
CALVIN: You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
HOBBES: What mood is that?
CALVIN: Last minute panic.
CALVIN: The only skills I have the patience to learn are those that have no real application in life.
CALVIN: A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.
CALVIN: 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.
CALVIN: I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.
CALVIN: Why should I have to work for everything?! It's like saying I don't deserve it!
TEACHER: Explain Newton's First Law of Motion in your own words.
CALVIN: Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz.
CALVIN: There's no problem so awful that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse!
CALVIN: I think life should be more like TV. I think all of life's problems ought to be solved in thirty minutes with simple homilies, don't you? I think weight and oral hygiene ought to be our biggest concerns. I think we should all have powerful, high-paying jobs, and everyone should drive fancy sports cars. All our desires should be instantly gratified. Women should always wear tight clothes, and men should carry powerful handguns. Life overall should be more glamorous, thrill-packed, and filled with applause, don't you think?
CALVIN: My life needs a rewind/erase button.
HOBBES: And a volume control.
Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?
CALVIN: You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help.
CALVIN: I love Saturday morning cartoons. What classic humor! This is what entertainment is all about. … Idiots, explosives and falling anvils.
HOBBES: First, your heart falls into your stomach and splashes your innards. All the moisture makes you sweat profusely. This condensation shorts the circuits to your brain, and you get all woozy. When your brain burns out altogether, your mouth disengages and you babble like a cretin until she leaves.
CALVIN: That's love?!?
HOBBES: Medically speaking.
CALVIN: Heck, that happened to me once, but I figured it was cooties!
CALVIN: I'm being educated against my will! My rights are being trampled!
HOBBES: Is it a right to remain ignorant?
CALVIN: I don't know, but I refuse to find out!
CALVIN: Tigers don't worry about much, do they?
HOBBES: Nope. That's one of the perks of being feral.
CALVIN: Know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change. But pretty soon, everything is different.
CALVIN: It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
CALVIN: I've noticed that comic book superheroes usually fight evil maniacs with grandiose plans to destroy the world. Why don't superheroes go after more subtle, realistic bad guys?
HOBBES: Yeah, the superhero could attend council meetings and write letters to the editor, and stuff.
CALVIN: Hmmm ... I think I see the problem.
HOBBES: "Quick! To the Bat-Fax!"
HOBBES: Do you think there's a God?
CALVIN: Well somebody's out to get me!
CALVIN: I'm a simple man, Hobbes.
HOBBES: You?? Yesterday you wanted a nuclear powered car that could turn into a jet with laser-guided heat-seeking missiles!
CALVIN: I'm a simple man with complex tastes.
CALVIN: They say the world is a stage. But obviously the play is unrehearsed and everybody is ad-libbing his lines.
HOBBES: Maybe that's why it's hard to tell if we're in a tragedy or a farce.
CALVIN: We need more special effects and dance numbers.
I'd say that crossed the line from Ironic Coincidence to Evil Omen.
CALVIN: Well, Hobbes, I guess there's a moral to all this.
HOBBES: What's that?
CALVIN: "Snow goons are bad news."
HOBBES: That lesson certainly ought to be inapplicable elsewhere in life.
CALVIN: I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification.
CALVIN: I'm at peace with the world. I'm completely serene.
HOBBES: Why is that?
CALVIN: I've discoved my purpose in life. I know why I was put here and why everything exists.
HOBBES: Oh, really?
CALVIN: Yes. I am here so everybody can do what I want.
HOBBES: It's nice to have that cleared up.
CALVIN: Once everyone accepts it, they’ll be serene, too.
CALVIN: The more you know, the harder it is to take decisive action. Once you become informed, you start seeing complexities and shades of gray. You realize that nothing is as clear and simple as it first appears. Ultimately, knowledge is paralyzing. Being a man of action, I can't afford to take that risk.
HOBBES: You're ignorant, but at least you act on it.
CALVIN: It's not denial. I'm just very selective about the reality I accept.
CALVIN (walking through snowy field): You know, Hobbes, it seems the only time most people go outside is to walk their cars. We have houses, electricity, plumbing, heat .... Maybe we're so sheltered and comfortable that we’ve lost touch with the natural world and forgotten our place in it. Maybe we've lost our awe of nature. That's why I want to ask you, as a tiger, a wild animal close to nature, what do you think we're put on Earth to do. What's our purpose in life? Why are we here?
HOBBES: We're here to devour each other alive.
CALVIN (in the house): Turn on the lights! Turn up the heat!
WIST is my collection of quotations I find meaningful, moving, amusing (intended or not), well-phrased, and/or to which I just say I "Wish I'd Said That." But just because I quote it here doesn't mean I actually agree with it. If you have any comments, corrections, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to
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