Life is mostly just learning how to lose.

I think a lot of creators are attracted to those toys they got to play with when they were young, and everyone wants to write a Superman story or a Batman story or a Spider-Man story. I don't know, if it's been successful for me, it should be successful for anyone. "Hit the ground with your feet running" is the secret of breaking new characters when it seems like no one else is having any luck.

Because it's in and about New York City, I knew 'Ex Machina' was going to have to continually mix the mundane and the fantastic.

Not a word of my writing has ever been changed by another person's hands, and I don't think many screenwriters can say that.

I'm really happiest living life 22 pages at a time and putting things in little boxes on pages.

I've written about teenage heroes before, on Marvel's Runaways, and I remember at the time when I pitched it, it was a team that had more female members than males. Even that caused of much discussion about, "Will there be a market for this, and should there at least be equal number of male and females?"

There's just something about that late '80s that suddenly feels like it has something to teach us.