“Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure.”

Maybe that’s why it’s hard to tell if we’re living in a tragedy or a farce. Calvin: We need more special effects and dance numbers.

I’ve been amazed at how one idea leads to others if I allow my mind to play and wander.

If you give a little credit to the concept of the artist, I think you ought to indulge excesses a bit, because that reflects the personality of the writer.

No sport is less organized than Calvinball.

What a stupid game! You must have cheated! You must have used some sneaky, underhanded mindmeld to make me lose! I hate you! I didn’t want to play this idiotic game in the first place! I knew you’d cheat!

I thought my life would seem more interesting with a musical score and a laugh track.

Ms. Wormwood: See me after class, Calvin. Calvin: [retrospectively] I’m not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.

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.

I don’t know how to spell it and I’m not allowed to say it. Could you just rattle off all the swear words you know and I’ll stop you when…Hello?

Suddenly, we realize our time in here is fleeting. Is our quick experience here pointless?

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

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

It’s not denial. I’m just selective about the reality I accept.

With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.

Calvin:”It says here that ‘religion is the opiate of the masses.’…what do you suppose that means?” Television: “…it means that Karl Marx hadn’t seen anything yet

A box of new crayons! Now they’re all pointy, lined up in order, bright and perfect. Soon they’ll be a bunch of ground down, rounded, indistinguishable stumps, missing their wrappers and smudged with other colors. Sometimes life seems unbearably tragic.

Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.

It’s late and I’m tired, but still I wait on your call. Your voice is the medication for the frustration with the distance.

Live without expectations and there will be no frustration.

I make things of my own that aren’t that glam, but I’m not known for that, which has always been a bit of a frustration for me.

I started at the very highest level so the upper end is something I know very well. I know it instinctively. But all the years I was designing, it frustrated me that I could reach so few women.

Even when I get the fried-chicken special of the day, I have to dig into it like it’s filet mignon.

Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst.

Delays, disappointments and defeats cause quitters to give up in resignation; losers, to give in the frustration; winners, to come through with determination.