“Surprise is the essence of humor, and nothing is more surprising than truth.”

At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It’s a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you’ll probably take a few.

Ms. Wormwood: Calvin, can you tell us what Lewis and Clark did? Calvin: No, but I can recite the secret superhero origin of each member of Captain Napalm’s Thermonuclear League of Liberty.

If people looked at the stars each night, they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.

Hello Dad! It is now three in the morning. Do you know where I am?

All the new media will inevitably change the look, function, and maybe even the purpose of comics, but comics are vibrant and versatile, so I think they’ll continue to find relevance one way or another. But they definitely won’t be the same as what I grew up with.

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

There are no restrictions of taste, approach, or subject matter. The gatekeepers are gone, so the prospect for new and different voices is exciting. Or at least it will be if anyone reads them.

Sleepwalking?” “Nightmare?” “Homicidal psycho jungle cat!

Calvin: Trick or treat! Adult: Where’s your costume? What are you supposed to be? Calvin: I’m yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet.

Life is full of surprises, but never when you need one.

I’d hate to have a kid like me.

I know the world isn’t fair, but why isn’t it ever unfair in my favor?

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

My whole problem is that my lips move when I think.

You have the Swiss Army Knife of mental tools, and it’s going to come in handy all the time.

I like my smock. You can tell the quality of the artist by the quality of his smock. Actually, I just like to say smock. Smock smock smock smock smock smock.

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

My writing has a lot of surprising twists.

I don’t intentionally make my films with the express goal of surprising the viewer.

Landing the role of Stephen Hawking was the most positively surprising thing that has happened to me.

Lose your schematic conventions by finding some surprising symbol or shape in the welter of shades, and draw that.

I want to work with intelligent people and look for scripts that I think are intelligent and surprising.