J. Michael Straczynski Quotes

For me, there's nothing sexier than a woman who can argue me into the ground and outsmart me...a woman who knows her own mind and isn't afraid to speak it.

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

Follow your passion. The rest will attend to itself. If I can do it, anybody can do it. It's possible. And it's your turn. So go for it. It's never too late to become what you always wanted to be in the first place.

You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.

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.

Greatness is never appreciated in youth, called pride in midlife, dismissed in old age, and reconsidered in death. Because we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst, we do all we can do destroy it.

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.

If I feel that I'm not able to do my best work - whether that's my own fault or as a result of an editorial situation - then I need to stop doing it. I would rather not do something than do it badly or ineffectively. It's the only way I can live with myself and do right by the fans in the long haul.

I have friends in different parts of the world, and they'll all go online at the same time and all pull up a movie and hit play, at the same moment, and then they'll comment to each other about it. They're sharing an experience, even though they're on different parts of the planet.

It's been amazing to watch, because for Thor, which was always a mid-selling book, to be in the top ten for every single issue since the reboot is just a great compliment.

The problem with writing a monthly book is that you're going through your work like a man running for a bus, red-faced and out of breath. There isn't time for reflection or critical self-examination.

We all are big believers in the notion that as a species we are better together than we are apart, that the common core of our shared humanity is stronger than that which seeks to marginalize us and factualize us and turn us against each other.

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.

If a person with a bullet in Dallas can change the world, imagine a person with an idea could do.

The hardest thing in the world is to stand alone. Your friends will not understand, will resent you, will want you to just stop it and let life go back to where it was. But you have to follow the quiet turning of your own considered conscience. It's a hard road.

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

When in doubt, blow something up.

All you can do is focus on telling the best story you can with compelling characters. If you do it right, it will endure. If you do it wrong, it won't.

Coming from TV and film, rule number one is that you always service the main character first and foremost. If that's not working, you've got nothing.

I'm all for teaching creation and allowing prayers in schools, as soon as scholars begin teaching Darwinism and geometry in church.

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.

For a lot of people, Superman is and has always been America's hero. He stands for what we believe is the best within us: limitless strength tempered by compassion, that can bear adversity and emerge stronger on the other side. He stands for what we all feel we would like to be able to stand for, when standing is hardest.

Wouldn't it be much worse if life really were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us happen because we really deserve them?

To me, science fiction is about the sense of mystery, the sense of awe. Not 'shock and awe', just 'awe.'

Writers write for one reason: to create an emotion in the reader, to reach across and make them feel something. You want a reaction. Yeah, it's nicer when the reaction is to throw flowers than it is to throw brickbats, but you have to accept both equally.

Budget grows out of the story. If you're writing a story with people caught in an elevator for most of the film, you're pretty sure it won't be a $200 million movie.

I sometimes find reality far more fantastical and unlikely than what I could just make up.

Writing is the process of asking the next logical question.

It's really important to me to keep growing as a writer, to look for new challenges and be harshly critical of my own work in order to learn and tell better stories.

The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language.

To have someone like Clint Eastwood come along and shoot your first draft as written is just any screenwriter's dream. And Clint is very straightforward. If it's good enough to get his attention, it's good enough to produce.

A lot of the futuristic space stuff seemed to me to be a very cool form of science-fiction, so that was my first real baptism in the genre.

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.

The universe considers me its personal cat toy.

If your going to have delusions, you might as well go for the really satisfying ones.

I can easily come up with ten really iconic stories/trade paperbacks for Superman, Batman, others... name me ten equally big, iconic Wonder Woman stories. Much harder. That ain't the character's fault, that isn't sexism, that's just not servicing the character.

Superhero stories are kind of in my DNA from childhood on, so I think I'm genetically drawn to playing in the genre when the opportunity presents itself.

No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever.

Growing up as a kid, we moved all over the country on a fairly frequent basis, from New Jersey to Texas, California, Illinois... we moved 21 times in my first 17 years.

I think that we are already making steps toward mapping out the brain so we can identify the chemical patterns that create and store memory.

Find what scares you and do it.