"Don't sit next to me, Calvin. I don't want to hear any disgusting comments about lunch. Relax. I won't talk about lunch at all. Instead, do you want to hear a riddle I made up? A riddle? OK. What's the difference between a garden slug and a two-inch-long living booger? EWW!! I can't think of a difference either."
"Get off the swing, Twinky. Forget it, Moe. Wait your turn. PUNCH! It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning."
"... tranquil Mt. Calvin... Suddenly, with a shaking rumble, he blows sky high! He's a live volcano! Geysers of molten lava spray into the heavens! I TOLD you that chili sauce was hot! GLUG GLUG GLUG Yechh, he spewed it all across the table!"
"Outrage! Why should I go to bed? I'm not tired! It's only 7:30! This is tyranny! I'm ZZZZ Good night, Calvin. Will you check for monsters under the bed? No monsters. You're safe. What about the dresser? Calvin, I'm sure there are no monsters in your dresser. Go to sleep. Great. I'll bet that's where they all are. They'll come out and kill us as soon as we fall asleep. So who's going to fall asleep? Well, we'll just have to get the monsters first. You irritate them with this horn, and I'll nail 'em with my dart gun when they come out. Get ready! I hear one coming! What's all the noise?! AAIEEE!! A monster in the hallway!! Dear will you come up here a minute? I think I wounded him. Give me the bat and I'll finish him off!"
"Hi Susie. What did you bring for lunch today? A swiss cheese and ketchup sandwich. It's my very favorite, too. So I don't want to hear what gross thing YOU brought. Relax, Susie. I bought cafeteria lunch today. Good. It appears to be cigar butts in a gallstone sauce. That's beany-wienies! Really? Oh gross."
"Hello? Hi Dad. It's me, Calvin. You're supposed to be at school! I AM at school. Are you all right? What's the matter? Why are you calling? I told the teacher I had to go to the bathroom. Quick, what's 11+7?"
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.
What are you DOING?! You're going to be late for school! Hurry up and put your clothes on right. It's sad how some people can't handle a little variety.
"No! goodness, what was all that fuss? Oh, Calvin didn't want to take his bath. What a noisy kid! I'm doomed. I can't believe my own parents would do this to me! AH-HA! I've got you now, kid! AAUGH! Help! Quick! Momm! HA HA HA! Have a drink! Hellp! Gurgle blub. Calvin! Quiet down and quit splashing! I don't want to have to clean the whole bathroom. Ha! I pulled the plug! Down the drain with you! Die, fiend! Die, die!! Don't tell me he's letting out the water already! Believe it lady."
"Hello, is your Dad there? No, he isn't. OK, will you write down my number and have him call me? Hold on. I need a pen. POW! AGHH! I've been shot! I hate taking messages."
"Mom, do we have a shoe box I could have? It's for a school project. I think so. Let's see. Here's one. What are you going to do with it? I'm supposed to make a diorama. We're studying the different ecosystems and I'm going to make a desert scene. That sounds interesting. I'll need some glue and paper and stuff too. I'm going to build a cactus and a roadrunner. When is this due? It was due today, but I told the teacher I wasn't quite finished."
"Wow, Mom sure turned into the conniption queen when she found out I hadn't neve started my diorama project when it was already due today. So this is one day late! What's the big deal?! It's not as if LIVES hang in the balance, right? The fate of the universe doesn't depend on turning in a shoe box desert scene on time! That's keeping things in perspective. Even if lives DID hang in the balance, it would depend on whose they were."
"This is hopeless! How am I supposed to create a desert scene in this shoe box when I don't even know what a desert looks like? I'VE never been to a desert. Mom and Dad never take me anywhere fun on vacations! If they'd taken me to a desert sometime, I'd KNOW this stuff! Why don't you get out a book? And go to all that TROUBLE?! Yeah, sure! Look, I'm a busy guy! I've got other things to do with my life besides THIS, you know!"
"Mom, where do we keep the papier-mache? We don't have any. Oh great! Just GREAT! How am I supposed to make a roadrunner without papier-mache?! Maybe you should have thought of that before 7:00 at night. You'll have to make one some other way. BUT HOW?! This is YOUR school project, Calvin. YOU do the work. If I get a bad grade, it'll be YOUR fault for not doing the work for me!"
"How's the diorama coming along? I'm almost finished. That didn't take too long. That's because I'm a genius. I don't see the roadrunner. Weren't you going to put one in? See the cotton balls I glued down? Yeah? The roadrunner just ran out of the scene, leveing those clouds of dust!"
"Our hero, the valiant Spaceman Spiff, is marooned on a strange world ... I'll set my Mertilizer on 'deep fat fry.' Calvin! You're not paying attention! ... we join Spaceman Spiff on the distant planet Zorg ... Gronk! Argh! Trapped by a hideous Graknil, Spiff draws his trusty atomic napalm neutralizer! Chew electric death snarling cur! But the weapon is useless! Spiff is doomed!! Our hero makes a break and ducks into a nearby cave! Weeoo! What's that awful smell? Eep! Who was that? Beats me, Fred."
"You've never had an obligation, an assignment, or a deadline in all your life! You have no responsibilities at all! It must be nice! Wipe that insolent smirk off your face! The real fun of living wisely is that you get to be smug about it."
"I hate doing this stuff! It's too much work. Why should I bother? 'Until you can stalk and overrun, you can't devour anyone.' I can see why tiger aphorisms don't catch on."
'"Live for the moment' is MY motto. You never know how long you've got! You could step into the road tomorrow and WHAM - you get hit by a cement truck! Then you'd be sorry you put off your pleasures! That's why I say 'Live for the moment'. What's YOUR motto? 'Look down the road.'"
"I've decided I don't want to be famous. No? Nah. ANY idiot can be famous. I figure I'M more the LEGENDARY type! Uh huh. Well, I didn't mean right this second!"
"Can we burn these leaves? No, that pollutes. But how can we appease the mighty snow demons if we don't sacrifice any leaves?! We'll have a warm winter. I don't know whether your grasp of theology or meteorology is the more appalling. I guess I'll go light some candles around the toboggan and beg for mercy."
"Do you think tigers go to the same heaven that people go to? I mean, in heaven, everyone is supposed to be HAPPY, right? But people wouldn't be happy if they were always in danger of being eaten by tigers! On the other hand, heaven wouldn't be very nice WITHOUT tigers, either. I wouldn't be happy if there weren't any tigers. I'd miss them. Maybe tigers just don't eat people in heaven. But then WE wouldn't be happy."
"We join our hero Megazorks above the planet Gloob ... Spaceman Spiff, conqueror of the cosmos, is pursued by the hideous scum beings of planet Q-13! Spiff hyper-freem drive malfunctions! The aliens close in! suddenly, a searing bolt of deadly fram ray slices across the blackness! Our hero is unfazed. Another bolt! Spiff is hit!! Spiff is going down can he make it?? Is this the end?!? AAAAAA Spiff's alive! He made it!! I'm alive! Ha ha ha! I kiss the sweet ground! Maybe you should play on the swings, Calvin."
"Hey Dad, I'll guess any number you're thinking of! Go ahead, and pick a number! Mm... OK, I've got it. Is it 92,376,051? By golly, it is! Wait a minute! You're just trying to get RID of me, aren't you?! No, you're psychic. Go show Mom."
"A lot of people don't have principles, but I do! I'm a highly principled person! I live according to one principle, and never deviate from it. What's your principle? 'Look out for number one.'"
"Mom, you know the sandwich you packed for me today? Well, by lunch time, the jelly had soaked into the bread. That grosses me out. So tomorrow, I'd like the jelly put in a separate container with a knife, so I can spread the jelly at the last possible moment before I eat the sandwich. Also, you keep using the bread from the middle of the loaf. I only like those pieces for toast. For sandwiches, I want only the end pieces, because they don't absorb as much jelly. Got it? Doggone it, she did it again!"