J. michael straczynski quotes

No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.

I've written for every medium except poetry, at which I suck.

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.

When it comes down to it, the reason that science fiction endures is that it is, at its core, an optimistic genre. What it says at the end of the day is that there is a tomorrow, we do go on, we don't extinguish ourselves and leave the planet to the cockroaches.

A changeling is one child substituted for another. I couldn't find anything more apt. We had to kind of fight that supernatural element in the publicity, and I offered to try and find another title, but Clint liked it, and it stayed.

In every other science fiction series, humans are at the top of the food chain. In the 'Babylon 5' universe, they're in the bottom third.

We are in a tech-heavy society, plunging headlong into an unknown future. Science fiction is what allows you to stand back and analyze the impact of that and put it in context of how it affects people.

I am a huge zombie fan. I have probably seen the George Romero movies 100 times each, without exaggeration.

Like everyone else, I am going to die. But the words - the words live on for as long as there are readers to see them, audiences to hear them. It is immortality by proxy. It is not really a bad deal, all things considered.

Avoid the tyranny of the reasonable voice...it will guarantee a complacency of never trying anything adventurous.

What are the purposes and priorities of teaching? . . . First, to inspire. Second, to challenge. Third, and only third, to impart information.

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

When in doubt, blow something up.

When I saw Wonder Woman being constantly put in positions where she'd get tied up with her own rope, or held hostage, even as a kid, my reaction was 'C'mon, she's too smart for that.'

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

Here's the miracle: I grew up thinking, 'Wouldn't it be great to write 'Superman' someday? Wouldn't it be great to create my own show, or work on 'Lensman,' or 'Forbidden Planet?'' Those were very literally the goals I set for myself, the dreams that I thought I didn't have a chance in hell of ever actually achieving. But it's happened.

If there’s any other message in this to readers, it’s in these two characters as icons of hope, that it doesn’t make any difference where you come from, or where you went to school, or who you are, there’s hope. That a kid from Jersey with Superman as the icon that kept him alive for years would one day end up writing the character is as absoutely unlikely as it is utterly inevitable. And if that’s true for me, it’s true for you, if you follow your dreams and your passions in full flight. Don’t give up. No Limits. It’s never too late to learn to fly.

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.

I'm delirious with joy. It proves that if you confront the universe with good intentions in your heart, it will reflect that and reward your intent. Usually. It just doesn't always do it in the way you expect.

I wake up every morning knowing how ridiculously lucky I am to be able to do what I love for a living, and that sense of wonder never, ever wears off.

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

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree by the river of truth, and tell the whole world - No, you move.

It is imperative for many branches of fundamentalist christianity to constantly feel conspired against...so they cite humanist manifestos and theosophical societies and concoct these vast and dark organizations that exist nowhere but in the minds of those who conceive these theories.

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.

Take care, don't fight, and remember: if you do not choose to lead, you will forever be led by others. Find what scares you, and do it. And you can make a difference, if you choose to do so.

Every time I got 'Amazing Spider-Man' or 'Fantastic Four' or another book firmly on the rails, we got pulled into some big event book or crossover and it cost momentum and messed badly with the pacing and structure of the book.

A good story should provoke discussion, debate, argument...and the occasional bar fight.

Thank you, but I'm afraid I can't accept your compliment. You see, I'm an atheist, so if I'm also God, that would mean that I don't believe in myself, and at this point in my life, I don't need the added insecurity.

We know that if memory is destroyed in one part of the brain, it can be sometimes re-created on a different part of the brain. And once we can unravel that amino chain of chemicals that is responsible for memory, I see no reason why we can't unlock it and, essentially, wipe out what's there.

At its heartmeat core, writing is about exploring the questions of your heart on the assumption that what intrigues you, what inflames or amuses or ennobles you, will have the same effect on someone else. It's about taking chances, and taking risks, and pushing yourself to be honest in the issues that present themselves.

Captain 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.

There's a lot of comics writers out there whose work I appreciate and who are nice guys. I really want to work with guys I really respect and enjoy.

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

The universe considers me its personal cat toy.

I've made a decision and now I must face the consequences.

As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it’s only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it’s gone forever.

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

The sky was full of stars, and every star an exploding ship.

I have this theory that the more important and intimate the emotion, the fewer words are required to express it. For instance in dating: 'Will you go out with me?' Six words. 'I really care for you.' Five words. 'You matter to me' Four words. 'I love you.' Three words. 'Marry me.' Two words. Well, what's left? What's the one most important and intimate word you can ever say to somebody? 'Goodbye...'

I am a control freak. I will admit that freely.

Anyone who sets foot into the Watchmen universe and isn't just a little nervous should be given a few days of electroshock therapy. I've always considered Watchmen to be one of the best graphic novels ever written, and when it came out back in 1986 I was as blown away as everyone else. Just masterful.

NEVER SURRENDER DREAMS If we are to be who we are; if we are to accomplish great things; then we must learn the heart's most essential rule: NEVER SURRENDER DREAMS

Whenever you can bring your chops in as a reporter to unearth a cool story, that's always a good thing.

If every violent program in the nation were blipped off the air for 48 hours, and replaced by reruns of the 'Donna Reed Show', there would not be one less death in South Central LA. At most you'd have several more incidents of people shooting out their TVs.

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

It was the dawn of the third age of mankind.

We are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers. We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner, holographic demons and invocations of equations. These are the tools we employ, and we know many things.

Stun settings are for people who can't commit.

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.

I don't need to write comics for a living. I have movies and TV for that. I write comics for one reason and one reason only: I love comics. I love the form, the structure, the storytelling process, I love everything about it.

All love is unrequited. All of it.

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.

There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender.

To understand this whole area, you have to stop thinking like a viewer and start thinking like a network programming exec.

The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.

When you're writing a story in bits and pieces, month in and month out, there really isn't time or space for reflection, no room to learn what those scripts had to teach you.

Understanding is a three-edged sword. Your side, my side, and the truth.

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.

I was born in Patterson, New Jersey, and raised pretty much all around the country. My family tended to move from place to place following economic prospects and jobs and looking for new opportunities, so we changed schools, colleges, grade schools, high schools every 6 months to a year - depending on the breaks.

I've changed my mind. I've decided that at the end I want to be cremated and my ashes scattered over someone I don't like.

We are not powerless. We have tremendous potential for good or ill. How we choose to use that power is up to us; but first we must choose to use it. We're told every day, You can't change the world. But the world is changing every day. Only question is who's doing it? You or somebody else?

Half-way through any big project, everyone forgets what they're doing.

The only thing that I discovered very early on is that, even though we might change schools and cities and towns and states, the books in the library were the same. They had the same covers. They had the same characters. I could go and visit those people in the library as if I knew them.

I'm a big believer in the idea that while we are the sum of our tears, we are also the product of our choices in how we deal with those tears.

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.

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.

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

I always knew that I was going to be a writer. There was no question in my mind about that.

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.

I was very clear that I wanted to keep 'Thor' out of the rest of the Marvel universe for no less than the first six issues. And the success of the book, I think, speaks well to that decision.

Whenever you write for someone else, you're always aware - sometimes overtly, other times at an almost cellular, subliminal level - of the rules about what you can and can't do.

Never 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.

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?

Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet. You can travel further with both than you can with just one.

Life 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.

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.

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.

There are people in life, who show you how to live. There are people in life, who show you how to die.

I've always been kind of a mutt creatively. I started off in journalism, and I've actually done more police and procedural shows than I've ever done science fiction shows. I was on 'Murder She Wrote,' I was on 'Walker, Texas Ranger,' I was on 'Jake and the Fat Man.'

I don't start writing a script until I can see it all in my head, then it's a matter of getting it down in white heat.

We walk in dark places no others will enter. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass. We live for the One. We die for the One. -- the Ranger oath

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.

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.

The whole point of Superman, as originally created, was to be the ally of those who had no other allies. It put that magnitude of power, the most powerful guy in the world, in the service of those who had no hope, no chance.

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

There's a rule of writing: if everything is funny, nothing is funny; if everything is sad, nothing is sad. You want that contrast.

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

Again, one of the problems I have with television, as I mentioned before, is it's trivial in many ways, and I think that a lot of folks out there are looking for new metaphors and new ways of thinking about things.

You don't buy into huge car chases or sensates or interstellar warfare, but you can buy into a loving relationship or a father-son relationship, and you can buy into the small humor. If you want to make your fiction universal, go small. That's the best way to do it.

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.

People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.

I also like to look at the dynamic that takes place between religion and science because, in a way, both are asking the same questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? The methodologies are diametrically opposed, but their motivation is the same; the wellspring is the same in both cases.

For me, growing up in a ridiculously poor family living in dead-end neighborhoods, Superman was a deeply personal icon, one that said you can do anything if you put your mind to it. What he stood for formed the core of who I wanted to be as I grew up, and informed how I view the world and my responsibilities to other people.

Writing is the process of asking the next logical question.

There was a point when comics were considered to be mainly of interest to kids, and it was decided that kids could relate more to someone their own age than an adult. So suddenly all these previously grownup comics were lousy with sidekicks: Aquagirl, Aqualad, Robin, Kid Flash, Speedy, Stripesy... the list goes on.

A story is a story is a story. The only difference is in the techniques you bring to bear. There are always limitations on what you can and can't do. But I enjoy that. Just like when you write a sonnet or haiku, there are rules you have to abide by. And to me, playing within the rules is the fun part. It keeps the brain fresh.

They told us not to wish in the first place, not to aspire, not to try; to be quiet, to play nice, to shoot low and aspire not at all. They are always wrong. Follow your dreams. Make your wishes. Create the future. And above all, believe in yourself.

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.

The more important the emotion is, the fewer words required to express it: Will you go out with me? I think I like you. I care for you. I love you. Marry me. Goodbye.

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.

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.

Stage-persona notwithstanding, I'm extremely shy and quiet. Almost painfully shy. People misinterpret that as being above it all or not interested.

Find what scares you and do it.

I like to consider my mind an open door. It's just not a revolving door.

When writers don't know what to do with a character, they build up the supporting cast and universe to kind of hide that fact. After a while, you can no longer see the character for the underbrush. When that happens, you need to bring out the weed-whacker to clear some of that away so you can focus on the main character.

The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in-between. But there is still time to seize that one last fragile moment.

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.

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.

On a purely personal level, it's very strange, because as a kid, Superman informed my personality. Now I've been given the job of forming Superman's personality and, in some ways, drawing on my own background.

As kids, we spontaneously sing and dance and tell stories, and along the way, someone comes and says, 'No. You shouldn't be doing that.' And we slowly begin to unlearn our passions. I think you have to hold on to those things.

There can always be new beginnings... even for people like us.

I like writing. It's partly control freak, and partly I really like what I do for a living. I have the luckiest job in the world. I can get up every day and do what I love for a living.

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.

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 sacred places are spared the ravages of war... then make all places sacred. And if the holy people are to be kept harmless from war... then make all people holy.

My house looks like it was decorated by a 14-year old with a platinum American Express card.

When a book of mine comes out, I instantly go hunting the net, not for praise, but for criticism, because that's how you learn, from people who don't have to be polite to you.

It is not for the gods to decide whether or not Man exists - it is for Man to decide whether or not the gods exist.

The whole point of having great characters is the opportunity to explore them more deeply with time, re-interpreting them for each new age.

On the Internet, inside information is currency, and there will always be counterfeiters among us.

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.

Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say.Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world -- "No, YOU move.

The 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.

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.