When I was little, I was given a copy of a Calvin and Hobbes anniversary book. I think this may already have been when the author, Bill Watterson, had retired.

The grown-ups, they like to say that your youth is the best time. When you're a little kid and you've got nothing to worry about except how to make your mud pie plat on the top, and you don't have taxes or a job or raising your snot-nosed little kids ...that's the best time.

They looked down at me, all full of wonder and amazement and naivete, they looked down at me and told me that this was the best it was ever going to get. So much for preserving one's innocence.

And then I read this book, and here's Bill Watterson in the introduction explaining how he created Calvin and Hobbes. And in little black letters that stood out against the page were:

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