from
Comic Strips
by various artists and writers

Quentin:
I’ve built a time machine!

Ollie:
What?! That won’t work!

Quentin:
Wanna bet? Read this.

Ollie:
09:37

Quentin:
See?

Ollie:
A clock! You’ve built a clock!

Ruthie:
Grandpa says that families are Nature’s way of keeping people from fighting with strangers!

Joe:
Yeah!

Grandma (Rose):
Nick!

Grandpa (Nick):
Rose, are we going to have to fight over this again?

Ruthie and Joe:
See?

Ruthie:
How come “Phonics” isn’t spelled with an “F”?

Ruthie:
They’re going to kick you out of kindergarten if you don’t know your numbers! James, I know this stuff, and I can help you! Remember, in this world there are three kinds of people: those who can count ... and those who can’t!

James:
Huh?

James:
What’s a jury?

Ruthie:
It’s a bunch of people who sit around and listen to both sides of the story ... and then decide who has the better lawyer.

Nick:
Marriage is like any other job. It’s much easier when you like your boss.

Ruthie:
Excuse me, you shouldn’t be mean to your dog like that!

Mean person:
Excuse me, don’t you know that silence is golden?

Ruthie:
Excuse me, not according to my grandpa! He says sometimes it’s just plain yellow!

Joe:
I’ll do most of the comic book, Ruthie. Maybe you can help color it.

Ruthie:
No fair, Joe! I can draw! And I’m a good word maker upper and putting downer on paper, too!

Joe:
You mean a writer?

Ruthie:
Yeah, I’m a great one!

Ruthie:
Mom, what are nudie tales?

Mom:
What?

Ruthie:
The man who says the news said some cars crashed in the fog! And then he said he had nudie tales at eleven!

Mom:
New details, Ruthie.

Ruthie:
Yeah, can I stay up and watch ’em?

Ruthie:
What’s taking them so long?!

Nick:
They’ll be here soon, Ruthie. We have to be patient and wait.

Ruthie:
Well, we need to wait a lot faster!

Ruthie:
why do I always have to know what I’m talking about, Joe? What kind of world would it be if everybody could only say stuff that made sense?

Joe:
A much quieter world!

Rose:
Channel 5’s movie is about “a saucy career woman who’s morally flexible...” Oh, my!

Ruthie:
What does that mean, Grandma?

Rose:
Uh... It means she’s a working woman who’s inclined to use spaghetti sauce from a jar!

Ruthie:
I don’t think that’s it, but I’ll let it go for now.

Rose:
Thank you, dear.

Lucy:
Life is a mystery, Charlie Brown... Do you know the answer?

Charlie Brown:
Be kind, don’t smoke, be prompt, smile a lot, eat sensibly, avoid cavities and mark your ballot carefully... Avoid too much sun, send overseas packages early, love all creatures above and below, insure your belongings and try to keep the ball low...

Lucy:
Hold real still because I’m going to hit you a very sharp blow on the nose!

on typewriter:

pause

pause

Snoopy:
I may have written myself into a corner ...

Linus:
In all this world there is nothing more inspiring than the sight of someone who has just been taken off the hook!

Linus:
I know why you’re so anxious for Charlie Brown to be President .. I’m smart! I’ve got it all figured out! I’m smart! You can’t fool me! You just want to be First Woman!

Lucy:
The term is “First Lady.”

Linus:
I’m never quite so stupid as when I’m being smart!

Charlie Brown:
I would never think of stealing cookies from a store!

Linus:
No, neither would I!

Charlie Brown:
But from home...that’s different..

Linus:
Oh, yes, it’s perfectly all right to steal them from your mother at home.

Snoopy:
That’s what is known as a double standard of morality!

Lucy:
Well, look here! A big yellow butterfly! It’s unusual to see one this time of year unless, of course, he flew up from Brazil... I’ll bet that’s it! They do that sometimes, you know... They fly up from Brazil, and they...

Linus:
This is no butterfly... This is a potato chip!

Lucy:
Well, I’ll be! So it is! I wonder how a potato chip got all the way up here from Brazil?

Charlie Brown:
... and besides, never forget that beauty is only skin deep!

Lucy:
I deny that! My beauty is not only on the surface, it goes down deep ... layer after layer after layer!

Yes, sir! I have very thick beauty!

Snoopy:
A kiss on the nose does much toward turning aside anger!

Linus:
How can a person just decide what he’s going to think? Doesn’t he have to think first, and then try to discover what it is that he’s thought?

You’re looking at me with blank eyes!

boy:
I’ve got this whole Santa Claus bit licked, Charlie Brown! If there is a Santa Claus, he’s going to be too nice not to bring me anything for Christmas no matter how I act...right? Right!

And if there isn’t any Santa Claus, then I haven’t really lost anything! Right?

Charlie Brown:
Wrong! But I don’t know where!

Linus:
You want me to be a spy?

Charlie Brown:
Not a spy ... a scout! A baseball scout! I’ll admit it’s a dangerous job, but it has to be done!

Now, I suppose the first question that comes to your mind is, “Why does this job have to be done?”

Linus:
No, the first question that comes to my mind is, “Why ME?”

Charlie Brown:
Another ball game lost!! Good grief! I get tired of losing... Everything I do, I lose!

Lucy:
Look at it this way, Charlie Brown.. We learn more from losing than we do from winning.

Charlie Brown:
That makes me the smartest person in the world!!

Rat:
It’s a self-help book. I call it, “Rat’s Guide to Being Happy.”

Pig:
What have you written so far?

Rat:
“To achieve happiness, spend $29.95 on this book.”

Pig:
How does that make other people happy?

Rat:
Who said anything about other people?

Pig:
What are you doing, Rat?

Rat:
I’m poring over physics books in an attempt to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics into one unified theory that governs our entire existence.

Pig:
What have you got so far?

Rat:
This.

Beer is good.

Pig:
I didn’t know it was that simple.

Rat:
I have developed a theory that explains the entire human condition. It’s called ‘Airplaneseatreclineology.’

Goat:
What is it?

Rat:
Two people, each in cramped conditions on a plane. Person ‘A’ can lessen his discomfort by reclining his seat... but there’s a catch.

Goat:
What’s that?

Rat:
His increased comfort can only come at the expense of person ‘B,’ who is further cramped by the reclined seat in front of him.

Goat:
So why would person ‘A’ do it?

Rat:
Because the airline says he can. And that’s ‘Airplaneseatreclineology’... People will do what they can, regardless of its effect on others. And that’s why the world is in the state it’s in.

Goat:
So why don’t you do something to try and change it?

Rat:
Because I’d slam my fellow passenger’s head in a retractable tray table if they let me.

Goat:
Wonderful.

Rat:
Hey... philosophers love wisdom, not mankind.

Pig:
My goal in life is to leave every place I visit a little better than when I arrived.

Rat:
I think you do that.

Pig:
You do??

Rat:
Yeah, every time you leave a room, I say to myself, ‘Hey, the room’s a little better.’

Pig:
Ohh, thank you!! Thank you!!

Rat (to Goat):
The best insults are the ones that look like compliments.

Rat:
My ethical conduct has begun to sink below even my standards. I think it’s time for me to change.

Goat:
I’m surprised to hear you say that, Rat. What are you going to do?

Rat:
Lower my ethical standards.

Goat:
Some people might change their conduct.

Rat:
Why take the hard road?

Sylvia:
Mom, the other day Dan asked me if you and Dan actually love each other.

Opal:
That’s a silly question. Of course we love each other. Why would he ask such a thing?

Sylvia:
It’s because you and Dad argue all the time, that’s why.

Opal:
Well, heck, if there aren’t any arguments in a marriage, it just means one of you isn’t necessary.

Earl:
Sometimes I think the situation in the world today is hopeless. And then I remember the words of a poem...

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul

And sings the tune without words and never stops at all.”

And then I think, what ever happened to that noisy old parakeet we used to have?

Earl:
What happened to your foot, Opal?

Opal:
I sprained my ankle.

Earl:
That’s unusual for you. You have such thick ankles you hardly ever sprain them.

Opal bounces a cushion off Earl’s head.

Earl:
You need to work on accepting compliments more gracefully!

Earl:
I’m trying to get the DVD player to open up so I can put in this DVD. I’ve pushed all the buttons, but nothing works!

Opal:
Pablo Picasso said, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

Earl:
Yeah, well I am always doing that which I cannot do, because I keep forgetting how I did it the last time.

Earl:
Life . . . is like a grapefruit. It’s yellow-orange and squishy, and it has a few seeds in it. . . and if you’re not careful, it will squirt you in the eye.

Hey, that’s pretty good! I should be sitting on a mountaintop dispensing wisdom.

Opal:
I second that motion.

Ted:
It’s 2006! Why on earth don’t pickles come in plastic bags now?!

Sally:
Couldn’t open the pickle jar again?

Ted:
I gotta tell you, the 21^st century is not living up to the early buzz.

Perfesser:
They’ve discovered the gene that causes shyness.

Shoe:
Really? How’d they do that?

Perfesser:
They found it hiding behind some other genes.

Sir Rodney:
The press says you’re spending more on the military than the poor.

King:
Hogwash! The poor spend twice as much on the military as I do!