J. Michael Straczynski Quotes - Page 3

Half-way through any big project, everyone forgets what they're doing.

There was a point when comics were considered to be mainly of interest to kids, and it was decided that kids could relate more to someone their own age than an adult. So suddenly all these previously grownup comics were lousy with sidekicks: Aquagirl, Aqualad, Robin, Kid Flash, Speedy, Stripesy... the list goes on.

What are the purposes and priorities of teaching? . . . First, to inspire. Second, to challenge. Third, and only third, to impart information.

Stun settings are for people who can't commit.

It is imperative for many branches of fundamentalist christianity to constantly feel conspired against...so they cite humanist manifestos and theosophical societies and concoct these vast and dark organizations that exist nowhere but in the minds of those who conceive these theories.

For me, growing up in a ridiculously poor family living in dead-end neighborhoods, Superman was a deeply personal icon, one that said you can do anything if you put your mind to it. What he stood for formed the core of who I wanted to be as I grew up, and informed how I view the world and my responsibilities to other people.

On a certain level, I don't think there is an answer to what the American way is, because it is constantly being re-defined. It's also been exploited and capitalized upon and politicized by one side or the other to the point that a certain degree of cynicism has attached itself to that term.

I am a huge zombie fan. I have probably seen the George Romero movies 100 times each, without exaggeration.

I grew up on comics and cartoons. So, as an adult, I like comics and cartoons.

I've always been a science fiction fan since I had understood the conception of what a story was.

I like to consider my mind an open door. It's just not a revolving door.

I like writing. It's partly control freak, and partly I really like what I do for a living. I have the luckiest job in the world. I can get up every day and do what I love for a living.

I've written for every medium except poetry, at which I suck.

I am a control freak. I will admit that freely.

When you're writing a story in bits and pieces, month in and month out, there really isn't time or space for reflection, no room to learn what those scripts had to teach you.

Did Alan Moore get screwed on his contract? Of course. Lots of people get screwed, but we still have Spider-Man and lots of other heroes.

The point of mythology or myth is to point to the horizon and to point back to ourselves: This is who we are; this is where we came from; and this is where we're going. And a lot of Western society over the last hundred years - the last 50 years really - has lost that. We have become rather aimless and wandering.

I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks the use of an angelic (or seemingly angelic character), whose likes have been written about for, oh, about 4,000 years, is ripping off Star Trek, has his head so thoroughly up his ass as to have blipped into an entirely new intestinally-based reality and desperately needs to get a wider frame of reference.

When the Seinfeld show said it was going to be a show about nothing, everybody said it couldn't - wouldn't work. It did. Thor is about something, about that character finding his destiny, but it's not doing what was expected... and yet it's doing very well.

My philosophy: find what it is you want to say, walk in the room, say it, and get the hell out.

The sky was full of stars, and every star an exploding ship.

If sacred places are spared the ravages of war... then make all places sacred. And if the holy people are to be kept harmless from war... then make all people holy.

If there’s any other message in this to readers, it’s in these two characters as icons of hope, that it doesn’t make any difference where you come from, or where you went to school, or who you are, there’s hope. That a kid from Jersey with Superman as the icon that kept him alive for years would one day end up writing the character is as absoutely unlikely as it is utterly inevitable. And if that’s true for me, it’s true for you, if you follow your dreams and your passions in full flight. Don’t give up. No Limits. It’s never too late to learn to fly.

Everyone in the entertainment business gets crappy contracts when we start out, and into the middle of our careers. It's the nature of the business.

They told us not to wish in the first place, not to aspire, not to try; to be quiet, to play nice, to shoot low and aspire not at all. They are always wrong. Follow your dreams. Make your wishes. Create the future. And above all, believe in yourself.