We need narrative; it feeds us in a particular way, and deconstructing it completely before you've actually experienced it, I think it leaves us unfed.
Joss WhedonI don't know a lot of show runners. I mean I met a lot of them in picket lines. I'm not part of a, like, secret society or pickup basketball game. As far as I'm concerned, pick-up basketball games are secret societies. They confuse me. I've never been a networker or I've never been very social.
Joss WhedonThe comic world has its own limitations, as everything does. I adore it, I respect it, but it's not going to take over all of me.
Joss WhedonI respect the rules of TV, the rules of keeping things commercial and interesting and pop-y and fun.
Joss WhedonThere’s a fine line between support and stalking and let’s all stay on the right side of that.
Joss WhedonHumor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing.
Joss WhedonDo you love me? What? Do you? I love you. I don't know if I trust you. Maybe you shouldn't do either. Maybe I'm the one who should decide!
Joss WhedonI don't actually have anything against anybody, unless their belief precludes everybody else's. I am an atheist and an absurdist and I have been for many years. I've actually taken a huge amount of flack for that.
Joss WhedonCordelia: I personally don't think it's possible to come up with a crazier plan. Oz: We attack the Mayor with hummus. Cordelia: I stand corrected. Oz: Just keeping things in perspective.
Joss WhedonEverything is a drug. Family, art, causes, new shoes… We’re all just tweaking our chem to avoid the void.
Joss WhedonThe absolute favorite part of Comic-Con is seeing like a Mass Effect guy hanging out with a Sailor Moon, and they're just having a great time. Nerds, we love what we love with a passion and sometimes it's an angry passion, and to see that all sort of bleed out and everybody just connect.
Joss WhedonAt the end of the day I have many answers for it. It has to do with my mom, who was an extraordinary woman, and a great feminist. It has to do with the people in my life. It has to do with a lot of different things, but -- I don't know! Because I'm not just writing from the female characters for other people. I have a desire to see them in our culture -- that was not met for most of my childhood. Except occasionally by James Cameron. [From the 2011 San Diego Comic Con, in response to being asked why he writes strong female characters.]
Joss WhedonEvery writer loves the idea of being able to go in and fix a problem and then leave without obligation. It's fun!
Joss WhedonIf you have a good idea, get it out there. For every idea I’ve realized, I have ten I sat on for a decade till someone else did it first. Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.
Joss WhedonI'm well aware when they fired the starting gun I was halfway down the track, but I still ran as fast as I could for 25 years.
Joss WhedonSomebody once asked me if I have anything like faith, and I said I have faith in the narrative. I have a belief in a narrative that is bigger than me, that is alive and I trust will work itself out.
Joss WhedonPeople love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy.
Joss WhedonThe problem is I want to do everything. I really love all of it, and I love every aspect of movie-making and storytelling, and I love television, I love the Internet. I wish I had time to do absolutely everything.
Joss WhedonI'd rather make a show 100 people need to see, than a show that 1000 people want to see.
Joss WhedonI've never watched reality shows, except for the Great British Bake Off, which is magnificent.
Joss WhedonThe one thing a creator can bring to the table when everybody else has all the money and power is centeredness and the ability to walk away. Never sit at a table you can't walk away from.
Joss WhedonI find that when you read a script, or rewrite something, or look at something that's been gone over, you can tell, like rings on a tree, by how bad it is, how long it's been in development.
Joss WhedonIt was only when I got to college that I realized that the rest of the world didn't run the way my world was run, and that there was a need for feminism. I'd thought it was all solved. There are people like my mom, clearly everyone is equal and it's all fine. Then I get into the world and I hear the things people are saying. Then I get to Hollywood and hear the very casual, almost insidious misogyny that just runs through so much of the fiction. It was just staggering to me.
Joss WhedonKristen Stewart is kind of captivating; she can just stare at stuff and it works because I still want to watch it.
Joss WhedonI designed 'Buffy' to be an icon, to be an emotional experience, to be loved in a way that other shows can't be loved. Because it's about adolescence, which is the most important thing people go through in their development, becoming an adult.
Joss WhedonWhen I was a kid, maybe 11, I remember saying, "When I grow up I wanna have enough money to buy a really cool car, because I won't."
Joss WhedonSadly, I hate foreigners. And Americans. And animals. And flora, and some fauna. Also the magma that is the very core of this our mother earth. I'm full o' hate!
Joss WhedonThere was a time before I felt I was a real writer, when I was a yarn spinner and I just wanted to tell story until it was over. But then there came a time where I was like, 'No, I want to understand something through writing this that I might have not understood before. I want people to come away with something to think about.'
Joss WhedonWhen it comes to the iconic moments, you sort of have to take all of those things and distill them the same way the costumers do and everybod Distill them and then find your own. The most iconic moment in the movie is, assuming they do, when they assemble.
Joss Whedon