Joss Whedon Quotes

Faith in God means believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers.

What you cut out becomes part of the story you tell.

Half of writing history is hiding the truth.

I cannot abide useless people.

Hillary Clinton is more in the center of things than I am, but she also knows how to work with the opposition, which is a necessary talent in politics right now.

I think “Batman Begins” is certainly my favorite Batman movie I’ve seen.

There's a reason Tony Stark makes fun of 'Thor,' and mentions 'Shakespeare' in the park in 'The Avengers.' It's great to play high drama and comedy alongside a modern story.

Politics, glamor, fame - they're all mixed up together, and they always have been.

Writing is the greatest thing that can happen to a human being. It's the best.

Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead.

I don't understand why or how anyone ever pulled off the whole idea of 'women are inferior.'

Limitations are something that I latch onto - like working in genre, or if you're writing TV, there are act breaks, there's a length of time it's supposed to be. The restrictions of budget and sets can be really useful. When you can have everything, it's very hard to make things feel real and lived in.

You can't just throw people at all your problems, dear.

I'm the least confident person in so many ways. But I believed that if somebody gave me the chance to tell a story, I would tell a story [well enough] that the person who gave me the chance would get their money back.

This is something that I do consider to be good advice: I took my first paycheck and I put it in the goddamn bank. Then I took my second paycheck and put it in the goddamn bank. I had seen the roller coaster of my father's career - top of the world, then unemployed - and I never wanted to take a job because I needed money.

The times are chaotic. For me, I would hope that people look at [Angel] and gain strength by it. With everything that I do, I hope that they see people struggling to live decent, moral lives in a completely chaotic world. They see how hard it is, how often they fail, and how they get up and keep trying. That, to me, is the most important message I'm ever going to tell.

Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.

I don't know video games.The last video game I played, apart from Dance Dance Revolution at Jeremy's house, which I was very good at - Scarlett [Johansson] and I will always have "Billie Jean" - was Super Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo. I'm from the Dark Ages.

Every vampire fiction reinvents vampires to its own needs. You take what you want.

I'm never interested in movies where you don't care about the people you're watching, and that's my biggest quibble about horror, that kids have gotten stupider and stupider.

You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.

You have, which is a rare thing, the ability and the responsibility to listen to the dissent in yourself. To at least give it the floor. Because it is the key, not only to consciousness, but to real growth.

If you can't do something smart, do something right.

It's about women. It's about power and it's about women and you just hate those two words in the same sentence, don't you?

Apart from a couple that were just having fun with the concept and making fun of [Donald] Trump - like the one we did with Keegan Michael-Key - they really are little hero narratives. The whole "Save the Day" - it's called that, specifically, for a reason - ethos is there is this heroic act called voting. And the world is scary, and things are overwhelming, and there's a lot at stake.

I always watch what I say. I am what I say.

'The Dark Knight,' for me, has the same problem that every other 'Batman' movie has. It's not about Batman. I think Heath Ledger is just phenomenal and the character of the Joker is beautifully written. He has a particular philosophy that he carries throughout the movie. He has one of the best bad guy schemes.

Everyone has their first date and the object is to hide your flaws. And then you're in a relationship, and it's all about hiding your disappointment. And then, once you're married, it's about hiding your sins.

I write for fanboy moments. I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of. I write to do all the things the viewers want too. So the intensity of the fan response is enormously gratifying. It means I hit a nerve.

Men not only don't get what's important about what women are capable of, but in fact they fear it, and envy it, and want to throw stones at it, because it's the thing they can't have.

When you're making a film, you have an obligation to fill the frame with life.

Let freedom ring, unless it's on vibrate.

Ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross. Know what the first rule of flying is? Well I s'pose you do, since you already know what I'm 'bout to say. I do. But I like to hear you say it. Love. Can know all the math in the 'verse but take a boat in the air that you don't love? She'll shake you off just as sure as a turn in the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home.

Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.

You go to movies to see people you love suffer - that's why you go to the movies. You don't go to see a movie about a guy who already knows he has a wonderful life.

Recognizing power in another does not diminish your own.

Because to me, there is no logic of any kind behind misogyny. Therefore, it’s funny, because it’s so completely random to me. It’s senseless.

When I say, "I love you," it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman.

Next year, Equality Now will celebrate - if that’s the word - will clock its twentieth year. Two decades of fighting the good fight, fighting the cause, and in case I haven’t been the clear, the cause is that one half of the human race is given the same basic equal rights that the other half enjoys. Or, not given. Given back. That is not a milestone, twenty years, that I intend to go unnoticed. I want to make some noise. I want to make a joyful noise, I want to make too much noise. I want the neighbors to complain. I’m tired of being polite about something that matters so much.

Every kid who hated grownups becomes a grownup. Well, except the ones who died.

What I love most about icons is finding out what's behind them, exploring the price of their power.

Someone else's loss is my chocolatey goodness

I got a bunch of people together to talk about doing a lot and decided that I really want to throw my hand in and do as much as I can.

I think it's always important for academics to study popular culture, even if the thing they are studying is idiotic. If it's successful or made a dent in culture, then it is worthy of study to find out why.

The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, he's going to keep digging, he's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who he is.

I believe the only reality is how we treat each other. The morality comes from the absence of any grander scheme, not from the presence of any grander scheme.

Loneliness is about the scariest thing out there.

We are, all of us, incoherent text, and just knowing that - knowing that no matter how much you say, 'I am this' and part of you is not that - means that you can say it.