Top 100 J. Michael Straczynski Quotes
#1. No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person, in the dark where no one will ever know or see.
J. Michael Straczynski
#2. Science fiction shows are traditionally about the gimmick or the gadget and tend to be emotionally cool to the touch.
J. Michael Straczynski
#3. When you walk into a movie theater, you don't walk out half-way through, and then come back the next day to watch the rest of it.
J. Michael Straczynski
#4. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#5. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#6. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#7. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#8. 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 Straczynski
#9. Not all murder is evil ...
In the right time, the right place, for the right reason
it can be a blessing more profound than any you can imagine
J. Michael Straczynski
#10. I sometimes find reality far more fantastical and unlikely than what I could just make up.
J. Michael Straczynski
#11. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#12. My philosophy: find what it is you want to say, walk in the room, say it, and get the hell out.
J. Michael Straczynski
#13. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#14. If your going to have delusions, you might as well go for the really satisfying ones.
J. Michael Straczynski
#15. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#16. You should do what you enjoy doing, what brings you passion. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#17. Life was meant to be lived full measure, flat out, pedal to the metal. Don't live the rest of your life like a Porsche that never leaves the garage because somebody's afraid to scratch it.
J. Michael Straczynski
#18. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of the future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.
J. Michael Straczynski
#19. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#20. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#21. My house looks like it was decorated by a 14-year old with a platinum American Express card.
J. Michael Straczynski
#22. A lot of television tends to assume that audiences don't have the attention span or the IQ to follow a lot of stuff.
J. Michael Straczynski
#23. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#24. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#25. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#26. To understand this whole area, you have to stop thinking like a viewer and start thinking like a network programming exec.
J. Michael Straczynski
#27. The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language.
J. Michael Straczynski
#28. 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.'
J. Michael Straczynski
#29. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#30. 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?
J. Michael Straczynski
#31. 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.'
J. Michael Straczynski
#32. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#34. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#35. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#36. To me, science fiction is about the sense of mystery, the sense of awe. Not 'shock and awe', just 'awe.'
J. Michael Straczynski
#37. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#39. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#40. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#41. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#43. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#44. I want to have time. When you're doing a monthly book, you're like a man racing after a bus. You're breathless and red-faced. I want to build in quality control.
J. Michael Straczynski
#45. I think for any writer, creating and controlling your own property is the ultimate dream.
J. Michael Straczynski
#47. 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?
J. Michael Straczynski
#49. There are those who seem to feel they have no choice about being jerks in the present because they had a crappy childhood. Well, that's the definition of childhood; nobody gets out alive. You either get stronger from what you experience, or you turn it into a crutch, an excuse, a dodge.
J. Michael Straczynski
#53. 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
J. Michael Straczynski
#54. There are people in life, who show you how to live. There are people in life, who show you how to die.
J. Michael Straczynski
#55. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#56. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#57. Stage-persona notwithstanding, I'm extremely shy and quiet. Almost painfully shy. People misinterpret that as being above it all or not interested.
J. Michael Straczynski
#58. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#59. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#60. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#61. I always knew that I was going to be a writer. There was no question in my mind about that.
J. Michael Straczynski
#62. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#64. Even as I think these words for the first time, the me who is my future self is remembering me thinking these words for the first time.
J. Michael Straczynski
#65. The American Way is an amalgam of our compassion, our strengths, our failings and our attempts to build a better world, a more perfect union.
J. Michael Straczynski
#66. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#67. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#68. People in a cluster are bound to each other automatically, and can see each other automatically.
J. Michael Straczynski
#70. The whole point of having great characters is the opportunity to explore them more deeply with time, re-interpreting them for each new age.
J. Michael Straczynski
#73. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#74. I'm all for teaching creation and allowing prayers in schools, as soon as scholars begin teaching Darwinism and geometry in church.
J. Michael Straczynski
#75. On the Internet, inside information is currency, and there will always be counterfeiters among us.
J. Michael Straczynski
#76. I've always been a science fiction fan since I had understood the conception of what a story was.
J. Michael Straczynski
#77. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#78. There'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 Straczynski
#79. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#81. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#82. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#83. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#84. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#86. The thing about denying someone their voice in this life is that it tends to come out in death.
J. Michael Straczynski
#87. A good story should provoke discussion, debate, argument ... and the occasional bar fight.
J. Michael Straczynski
#88. Sometimes you can't see what the problem is until you go close, until you look deep inside. It's when you look beyond the edge of what you think you know that you can finally arrive at the truth.
J. Michael Straczynski
#89. I am a huge zombie fan. I have probably seen the George Romero movies 100 times each, without exaggeration.
J. Michael Straczynski
#90. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#91. I have to move fast, if I hesitate even a second longer, I'll lose focus and be trapped forever in this ... this ... toilet!
J. Michael Straczynski
#92. I've worked on high visibility shows that weren't always the best, and low visibility shows that I love but that didn't have the PR behind them.
J. Michael Straczynski
#93. Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet. You can travel further with both than you can with just one.
J. Michael Straczynski
#94. If a person with a bullet in Dallas can change the world, imagine a person with an idea could do.
J. Michael Straczynski
#96. 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.
J. Michael Straczynski
#97. What are the purposes and priorities of teaching? ... First, to inspire. Second, to challenge. Third, and only third, to impart information.
J. Michael Straczynski
#98. Accidents happen. That's what everyone says. But in a quantum universe there are no such things as accidents, only possibilities and probabilities folded into existence by perception.
J. Michael Straczynski
#99. G'Kar: We are all the sum of our tears. Too little and the ground is not fertile, and nothing can grow there. Too much, the best of us is washed away.
J. Michael Straczynski
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