Bill Watterson · 254 pages
Rating: (18.9K votes)
“I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know.”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
“I'd hate to have a kid like me.”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
“If you can't control your peanut butter, you can't expect to control your life.”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
“Girls are like slugs—they probably serve some purpose, but it's hard to imagine what.”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
“I won't eat any cereal that doesn't turn the milk purple.”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
“Calvin: The more you know, the harder it is to take decisive action.
Once you are informed, you start seeing complexities and shades of gray.
You realize nothing is as clear as it first appears. Ultimately, knowledge is paralyzing.
Being a man of action, I cannot afford to take that risk.
Hobbes: You're ignorant, but at least you act on it.”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
“Happiness is being famous for your financial ability to indulge in every kind of excess.”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
“But Calvin is no kind and loving god! He's one of the old gods! He demands sacrifice!”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
“Barney's Dad was really bad so Barney hatched a plan
when his dad said "Eat your peas."
Barney shouted no and ran
Barney tricked his mean old dad and locked him in the cellar
Barney's Mom never found out where he'd gone,
Cause Barney didn't tell her.
There his dad spent his life eating mice and gruel
With every bite for fifty years
he was sorry he'd been cruel”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
“Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost the greatest thing which has been or ever will be - a God-Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest saints that there will be in the end of time. The formation and the education of the great saints who shall come at the end of the world are reserved for her. For it is only that singular and miraculous Virgin who can produce, in union with the Holy Ghost, singular and extraordinary things.”
― St. Louis de Montfort, quote from True Devotion to Mary
“Melinda Pratt rides city bus number twelve to her cello lesson, wearing her mother's jean jacket and only one sock. Hallo, world, says Minna. Minna often addresses the world, sometimes silently, sometimes out loud. Bus number twelve is her favorite place for watching, inside and out. The bus passes cars and bicycles and people walking dogs. It passes store windows, and every so often Minna sees her face reflection, two dark eyes in a face as pale as a winter dawn. There are fourteen people on the bus today. Minna stands up to count them. She likes to count people, telephone poles, hats, umbrellas, and, lately, earrings. One girl, sitting directly in front of Minna, has seven earrings, five in one ear. She has wisps of dyed green hair that lie like forsythia buds against her neck.
There are, Minna knows, a king, a past president of the United States, and a beauty queen on the bus. Minna can tell by looking. The king yawns and scratches his ear with his little finger. Scratches, not picks. The beauty queen sleeps, her mouth open, her hair the color of tomatoes not yet ripe. The past preside of the United States reads Teen Love and Body Builder's Annual.
Next to Minna, leaning against the seat, is her cello in its zippered canvas case. Next to her cello is her younger brother, McGrew, who is humming. McGrew always hums. Sometimes he hums sentences, though most often it comes out like singing. McGrew's teachers do not enjoy McGrew answering questions in hums or song. Neither does the school principal, Mr. Ripley. McGrew spends lots of time sitting on the bench outside Mr. Ripley's office, humming.
Today McGrew is humming the newspaper. First the headlines, then the sports section, then the comics. McGrew only laughs at the headlines.
Minna smiles at her brother. He is small and stocky and compact like a suitcase. Minna loves him. McGrew always tells the truth, even when he shouldn't. He is kind. And he lends Minna money from the coffee jar he keeps beneath his mattress.
Minna looks out the bus window and thinks about her life. Her one life. She likes artichokes and blue fingernail polish and Mozart played too fast. She loves baseball, and the month of March because no one else much likes March, and every shade of brown she has ever seen. But this is only one life. Someday, she knows, she will have another life. A better one. McGrew knows this, too. McGrew is ten years old. He knows nearly everything. He knows, for instance, that his older sister, Minna Pratt, age eleven, is sitting patiently next to her cello waiting to be a woman.”
― Patricia MacLachlan, quote from The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt
“He looks good for a while, but ya know, ya can’t shine a sneaker.”
― Claire Cook, quote from Must Love Dogs
“Our fingers brush together for a brief moment, and I'm suddenly overwhelmed with the need to be touched.
Not fucked. Not kissed. Not titillated. Just...held, perhaps. Embraced. Enfolded.”
― Andra Brynn, quote from Where I End and You Begin
“But what could you do? Only keep going. People kept going; they had been doing it for thousands of years. You took the kindness offered, letting it seep as far in as it could go, and the remaining dark crevices you carried around with you, knowing that over time they might change into something almost bearable. Dottie,”
― Elizabeth Strout, quote from Amy and Isabelle
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