I keep waiting for a paradigm shift to happen that will let network and studio execs see that sci-fi is the same as any other genre in terms of how you approach it - logically, character-based, with challenging ideas and forward thinking - but I worry that it might never happen in my lifetime.
J. Michael StraczynskiLife isn't about the final moments, it's about the journey, it's about process. What makes Rocky work as a movie is seeing him working his way up from the streets to the arena and the fight of his life. You could just show that fight, and it would be great, but seeing that journey illuminates that fight and adds profound meaning to it.
J. Michael StraczynskiThere's a rule of writing: if everything is funny, nothing is funny; if everything is sad, nothing is sad. You want that contrast.
J. Michael StraczynskiNever follow somebody else's path; it doesn't work the same way twice for anyone... the path follows you and rolls up behind you as you walk, forcing the next person to find their own way.
J. Michael StraczynskiWhat are the purposes and priorities of teaching? . . . First, to inspire. Second, to challenge. Third, and only third, to impart information.
J. Michael StraczynskiThe 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.
J. Michael StraczynskiCaptain John Sheridan: I wish I had your faith in the universe. I just don't see it. Delenn: Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain. Perhaps the greatest of them all. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station , and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff. We are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. And as we have both learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective.
J. Michael Straczynski