from
Calvin and Hobbes
books by
Bill Watterson

Calvin:
“A bushel is a unit of weight equal to four pecks.” What’s a peck?

Hobbes:
A quick smooch.

pause

Calvin:
You know, I don’t understand math at all.

Calvin:
What’s it like to fall in love?

Hobbes:
Well... Say the object of your affection walks by...

Calvin:
Yeah?

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 need help on my homework. What’s a pronoun?

Hobbes:
A noun that lost its amateur status.

pause

Calvin:
Maybe I can get a point for originality.

Calvin:
I have a hypothetical question. Suppose a kid at school called me a nasty name... Should I kick him real hard in the shins?

Hobbes:
No, I don’t think violence would be justified.

Calvin:
Here’s another hypothetical question. What if I already did?

Calvin:
What’s this music?

Hobbes:
It’s “The 1812 Overture.”

Calvin:
I kinda like it. Interesting percussion section.

Hobbes:
Those are cannons.

Calvin:
And they perform this in crowded concert halls?? Gee, I thought classical music was boring!

Calvin:
Why do I have to go to bed now? I never get to do what I want! If I grow up to be some sort of psychopath because of this, you’ll all be sorry!!

Dad:
Nobody ever became a psychopath because he had to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Calvin:
Yeah, but you won’t let me chew tobacco either! You never know what might push me over the brink!

Dad:
Go to bed, Calvin.

Calvin:
I feel bad that I called Susie names and hurt her feelings. I’m sorry I did it.

Hobbes:
Maybe you should apologize to her.

Calvin:
I keep hoping there’s a less obvious solution.

Calvin:
This is where Dad buried the little raccoon. I didn’t even know he existed a few days ago and now he’s gone forever. It’s like I found him for no reason. I had to say good-bye as soon as I said hello. Still... in a sad, awful, terrible way, I’m happy I met him.

* sniff *

What a stupid world.

Hobbes:
I didn’t know you had a transmogrifier.

Calvin:
I just got it. You step into this chamber, set the appropriate dials, and it turns you into whatever you’d like to be.

Hobbes:
It’s amazing what they do with corrugated cardboard these days.

Calvin:
Isn’t it?

Calvin (silently):
Please don’t let the teacher call on me! Don’t make me go to the board in my ripped pants! Anyone but me! Just let her call on someone else! Please don’t embarrass me in front of the whole class!

Miss Wormwood:
Calvin, would you do the next problem at the board?

Calvin:
So much for my ever joining the clergy.

book:
Mr. Jones lives 50 miles away from you. You both leave home at 5:00 and drive toward each other. Mr. Jones travels at 35 mph., and you drive at 40 mph. At what time will you pass Mr. Jones on the road?

Calvin writes:
Given the traffic around here at 5:00, who knows?

Calvin:
I always catch these trick questions.

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:
AAUUGHHH!

Mom:
Dear, what are you telling Calvin now?!

Calvin:

“ Tigers are mean!

Tigers are fierce!

Tigers have teeth

And claws that pierce!”

“ Tigers are great!

They can’t be beat!

If I was a tiger,

That would be neat!”

He can climb the tree without the ladder, so he got to make up the password.

Hobbes:
Go on, what’s the third verse?

Calvin:
Dad, look! The sun’s setting and it’s only 3 o’clock!

Dad:
It’s not 3 o’clock. Your watch stopped.

Calvin:
Time doesn’t stop if your watch stops?

Dad:
Nope.

Calvin:
Phooey. For a moment there, I thought I’d get rich patenting this thing.

Dad:
I’d have bought one.

Calvin:
Hobbes and I are seceding from this family, Mom.

Mom:
Oh really?

Calvin:
Yep. We’re taking my sled and moving to the Yukon.

Mom:
Well, that’s a long way away.

Calvin:
I know. Here’s a list of sandwiches and supplies we’ll need.

Mom:
Why should I do all this if you’re seceding from the family?

Calvin:
We haven’t seceded yet! Geez, what kind of Mom are you?

Calvin:
I cut out construction paper feathers and taped them on my arms so I can fly! Pretty neat, huh?

Hobbes:
If paper feathers are all it takes to fly, don’t you think we’d have heard about it before?

Calvin:
It takes an uncommon mind to think of these things, Hobbes.

Hobbes:
I’d agree with that.

Calvin:
Mom, can Hobbes and I rent a VCR and a tape tonight?

Mom:
I don’t think so, Calvin. It’s a school night.

Calvin:
What if we got an educational tape?

Mom:
Like what?

Calvin:
“Cannibal Stewardess Vixens Unchained.”

Later, in Calvin’s room:

Calvin:
Now she won’t even let us go into the store.

Hobbes:
I think we’d learn a lot by watching that.

Calvin:
This whole Santa Claus thing just doesn’t make sense. Why all the secrecy? Why all the mystery? If the guy exists, why doesn’t he ever show himself and prove it? And if he doesn’t exist, what’s the meaning of all this?

Hobbes:
I dunno... Isn’t this a religious holiday?

Calvin:
Yeah, but actually, I’ve got the same questions about God.

Hobbes:
Did you make any resolutions for the new year?

Calvin:
Heck no. I’m fine just the way I am! Why should I change? In fact, I think it’s high time the world started changing to suit me! I don’t see why I should do all the changing around here! If the new year requires resolutions, I say it’s up to everyone else, not me! I don’t need to improve! Everyone else does!

How about you? Did you make any resolutions?

Hobbes:
Well, I had resolved to be less offended by human nature, but I think I blew it already.

Calvin:
Here’s another math problem I can’t figure out. What’s 9 + 4?

Hobbes:
Ooh, that’s a tricky one. You have to use calculus and imaginary numbers for this.

Calvin:
Imaginary numbers?!

Hobbes:
You know, eleventeen, thirty-twelve, and all those. It’s a little confusing at first.

Calvin:
How did you learn all this? You’ve never even gone to school!

Hobbes:
Instinct. Tigers are born with it.

Calvin:
[...] I heard that sometimes kids don’t pay attention because the class goes at too slow of a pace for them. Some of us are too smart for the class.

Susie:
Oh, right. You’re too smart.

Calvin:
Believe it, lady. You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid? Well, mine are even worse!

Calvin:
How does this transmogrifier gun know what to transmogrify something into?

Calvin:
Telepathy. The gun automatically reads the brain waves you emit, and turns the object into whatever you want.

Hobbes:
That’s amazing.

Calvin:
Well, it took me all morning to invent.

Hobbes:
So say I’m thinking about a big slab of grilled tuna now...

Calvin:
Watch where you’re pointing that! Watch where you’re pointing that!

Calvin:
Dad, how come old photographs are always black and white? Didn’t they have color film back then?

Dad:
Sure they did. In fact, those old photographs are in color. It’s just the world was black and white then.

Calvin:
Really?

Dad:
Yep. The world didn’t turn color until sometime in the 1930s, and it was pretty grainy color for a while, too.

Calvin:
That’s really weird.

Dad:
Well, truth is stranger than fiction.

Calvin:
But then why are old paintings in color?! If the world was black and white, wouldn’t artists have painted it that way?

Dad:
Not necessarily. A lot of great artists were insane.

Calvin:
But... but how could they have painted in color anyway? Wouldn’t their paints have been shades of gray back then?

Dad:
Of course, but they turned colors like everything else did in the ’30s.

Calvin:
So why didn’t old black and white photos turn color too?

Dad:
Because they were color pictures of black and white, remember?

Calvin:
I was reading about how countless species are being pushed toward extinction by man’s destruction of forests.

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.

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 weather?! Give me a break!

Calvin:
Dad, will you explain the theory of relativity to me? I don’t understand why time goes slower at great speed.

Dad:
It’s because you keep changing time zones. See, if you fly to California, you gain three hours on a five-hour flight, right? So if you go at the speed of light, you gain more time, because it doesn’t take as long to get there. Of course, the theory of relativity only works if you’re going west.

Calvin:
Gee, that’s not what Mom said at all! She must be totally off her rocker.

Dad:
Well, we men are better at abstract reasoning. Go tell her that.

Dad:
I hear you signed up to play softball at recess.

Calvin:
Yeah, but I didn’t even want to. I just did it to stop getting teased.

Dad:
Well, sports are good for you. They teach teamwork and cooperation. You learn how to win graciously and accept defeat. It builds character.

Calvin:
Every time I’ve built character, I’ve regretted it! I don’t want to learn teamwork! I don’t want to learn about winning and losing! Heck, I don’t even want to compete! What’s wrong with just having fun by yourself, huh?

Dad:
When you grow up, it’s not allowed.

Calvin:
All the more reason I should do it now!

Calvin:
Ever notice how decisions make chain reactions?

Hobbes:
How so?

Calvin:
Well, each decision we make determines the range of choices we’ll face next.

Take this fork in the road for instance. Which way should we go? Arbitrarily, I choose left.

Now, as a direct result of that decision, we’re faced with another choice: should we jump this ledge or ride along the side of it? If we hadn’t turned left at the fork, this new choice would never have come up.

Hobbes:
I note, with some dismay, you’ve chosen to jump the ledge.

Calvin:
Right. And that decision will give us new choices.

Hobbes:
Like, should we bail out or die in the landing?

Calvin:
Exactly. Our first decision created a chain reaction of decisions. Let’s jump.

After landing in the stream:

Calvin:
See? If you don’t make each decision carefully, you never know where you’ll end up. That’s an important lesson we should learn sometime.

Hobbes:
I wish we could talk about these things without the visual aids.