Joss Whedon Quotes

The musicals that I love on stage are generally meant for the stage.

The problem for me is that 'Watchmen,' one of the great comics of all time, is a look at superheroes that has gone beyond the concept of or necessity for superheroes.

Vampire Willow: "Bored now.

When 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.'

Try taking a stand on just one leg. You need to see both sides.

A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend

In my generation, there was a single girl given the strength and skill to fight the spread of darkness ... but in your generation, there are nearly two thousand with the powers of the slayer, and not all of them have chosen to use their newfound abilities conscientiously.

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.

If somebody is in a story, they need to be there for a reason, and not just to set up somebody else's story.

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.

Movies were always the goal, but I had a lot of goals. Twelve-year-old me wanted to do everything: act and sing and paint and dance.

The first thing I ever thought of when I thought of Buffy , the movie, was the little ... blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed, in every horror movie. The idea of Buffy was to subvert that idea, that image, and create someone who was a hero where she had always been a victim. That element of surprise ... genre-busting is very much at the heart of both the movie and the series.

Lockheed! You found me! You are the best X-Dragon ever.

Everything I do in its essence is about helplessness. That's the story I want to tell all the time. It's the story I wanted to live - somebody who appears to be, or is, weak becoming stronger.

All of the most important lessons about writing I learned from my father. He never set out to teach me anything, it would just be something he said casually in conversation.

I've Got Him! You've got to keep at her. Forget all your training
she's fought you a thousand times."
"Don't presume to run my team, you little tart-"
(Colossus throws Emma at Danger)
"Yes. I see how it works. Normally, I wouldn't have done that.

You are talking crazy-person talk. Put your words in word places please.

Most of the dialogue in 'Speed' is mine, and a bunch of the characters. That was actually pretty much a good experience. I have quibbles. I also have the only poster left with my name still on it. Getting arbitrated off the credits was un-fun.

My 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.

Don't just be yourself. Be all of your selves.

'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.

Writers are completely out of touch with reality. Writers are a crazy person. We create conflict - for a living. We do this all the time, sometimes on a weekly basis; we create horrible, incredible circumstances and then figure a way out of them. That's what we do.

If every vampire who said he was at The Crucifixion, was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock ...

Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction. We live in a space ship, dear.

There are many films and TV shows I make where people find themselves in fantastical situations; as often as possible, their reactions to it are very normal.

The goal is always about the next story. It's always about the thing I haven't done before. It's about learning, or it's about becoming better, and it's about whatever story grabs hold of me.

There's a lot of anger in the Twitter-verse, as I've discovered. But there's a lot of love.

I don't think that I can change the world, I just want to punch it up a little.

The fact is some people really love my work, some people not so much, but at the end of the day, I don't want anybody coming out of the movie thinking about me.

I had older brothers, and I don't think there's anything worse than an older brother. They pretty much told me the end of everything they got to see before I did.

My soul is wrapped in harsh repose, Midnight descends in raven-colored clothes, But soft ... behold! A sunlight beam Butting a swath of glimmering gleam. My heart expands, 'tis grown a bulge in it, Inspired by your beauty ... Effulgent.

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

TV's like whitewater rafting: Without rocks, there wouldn't be rapids, and it wouldn't be as much fun.

Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.

Misogyny ... is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who is confronted with it.

I never give up on anything, because you come back around, and suddenly the thing you thought you'd never do is relevant.

People always say I write a lot of pop culture references. Can somebody please count the pop culture references in 'Firefly?' Because I don't know how to put this to you, but there was one. I referenced The Beatles in the pilot.

Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women.

The greatest expression of rebellion is joy.

Contradiction is the seed of conciousness. I knew, from the pain of contradiction, that I was. And what I was.

Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It's harsh and cruel. But that's why there's us. Champions. It doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world was what it should be, to show it what it can be.

"'Come on, guys, I'm the leader of a whole movie ... !' I tell when I want people to fear and respect me. Not wildly effective."

Spike: Bloody hell, woman, you're cutting off my circulation!
Buffy: You don't have any circulation.
Spike: Well, it pinches

If the apocalypse comes...beep me!

We'll never make Firefly again, because that was a thing that existed and is now gone. And Serenity isn't Firefly, and whatever comes next won't be, either. But I would love to tell more stories of this universe and to hang out with these people on and off for the rest of my career.

I don't think I'm a celebrity. Maybe I'm a cult figure?

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 person.

Dr. Banner, your work is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous, green rage monster.

I'm working on Buffy: Deep Space Nine . It will be dark and badly received.

There's so much you thought you could never face. The decision not to try to control your power, to let it be your demon. Too shameful to remember, so you let it eat your life up instead. But you're past it now, Scott. And all you had to defeat, all you had to let go of ... was you. You're free, my love. You're free.

More than 70 earths spinnin' about the galaxy, and the meek have inherited not a one.

I'm assuming you're as mystified by this as the rest of us, Rasputin.
No. I'm not. I have been planning to destroy the Breakworld since I was a child.
[silence]
This is why I don't make so many jokes. I never know when is good.

It's not any huge secret that I'm an atheist.

I am not a fan of referencing your own work when it's in a different universe than what you're doing. That, to me, is a wink at the audience, and winking isn't actually cool when you're not, like, 10.

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

It's only recently women got to be action heroes on TV. Progress is slow, and often non-existent. There's plenty of cool comics with female characters ... But all it takes is one Catwoman to set the cause back a decade.

Are you all right?"
"Oh my god! I phased!"
"Are you all right?"
"Are you?"
"It was strange."
"I can't believe I phased just then! That's never ... it was totally your fault."
"I like to think so, yes."
"Tee hee.

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If something isn't working, if you have a story that you've built and it's blocked and you can't figure it out, take your favorite scene, or your very best idea or set-piece, and cut it. It's brutal, but sometimes inevitable.

The more power that we have, the less human we are.

Everything I do is going to contain the message that men who are going to be comfortable with powerful women are going to be more powerful men

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.

This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people ... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave.

The people who feel the most strongly about something will turn on you the most vociferously if they feel you've let them down.

Captain, I think you have a problem with your brain being missing.

I'd rather make a show 100 people need to see, than a show that 1000 people want to see.

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.

I don't believe in creating exclusionary art.

That's the great thing about 'The West Wing:' you really felt like you were in the thick of it.

You think we're dancing?" "That's all we've ever done.

There are two things that I cannot resist: one is musicals and the other is a spaceship in trouble. But I am smart enough not to combine the two things.

Malcolm: So me and mine gotta lay down and die ... So you can live in your better world?
Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there ... any more than there is for you. I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it. But it must be done.

The first lesson a watcher learns is to separate truth from illusion. Because in the world of magicks, it's the hardest thing to do.

I've had so much success. I had something to say, I got to say it, people heard it, and they agreed. That's every artist's dream. That's the brass ring.

[My mother] really was an extraordinary, inspirational, tough, cool, sexy, funny woman. And that's the kind of woman I've always surrounded myself with, my friends and particularly my wife, who is not only smarter than and stronger than I am, but occasionally taller, too. I think it also goes back to my father and my stepfather, because they prized wit and resolve in the women they were with above all things and they were among the rare men who understood that recognising someone else's power doesn't diminish your own.

Wanna know what a bullet feels like, Warren? A real one? It's not like in the comics ... I think you need to. Feel it ... It's not going to make a neat little hole. First - it'll obliterate your internal organs. Your lung will collapse, feels like drowning ... When it finally hits your spine, it'll blow your central nervous system- ... I'm talking. The pain will be unbearable, but you won't be able to move ... A bullet usually travels faster than this, of course. But the dying? It seems like it takes forever. Something, isn't it? One tiny piece of metal destroys everything. It ripped her insides out ... It took her light away. From me. From the world ... And now the one person who should be here is gone - and a waste like you gets to live. A tiny piece of metal. Can you feel it now?

The hardest thing in this world, is to live in it.

They'll all be waiting. Waiting for me to fall.
So, come on , guys. I'm just one girl. No big hero, no protector of justice, not even a bona fide one-hundred-percent slayer. So what are you waiting for?
Take me on.
Hurt my world.
I dare you.

That wouldn't be a first, now would it?"
"Jean."
"Jean Grey is dead, Agent."
"Yeah, that'll last.

It's not enough to bash in heads. You've got to bash in minds.

I'm very much more interested in the created family than I am in actual families.

Science fiction is like a blender - you can put in any historical experience and take influences from everything you see, read or experience.

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

I love all genres. The only thing I get stymied by is the Family Drama. I don't necessarily know how to approach that.

Scramblers deactivated, then?
Well here's some good news.
You feel no pain.
You will go straight to a hospital. Remember nothing of this place.
And every time you hear the words "parsley", "intractable" or "longitude", you will vomit uncontrollably for forty-eight hours.

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.

I like horror; I like comedy; I like drama; I like action; I like female heroes.

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

This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off
the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths-just because they
can't think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my
Avengers idea that I made up myself

The 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.

It is not so bad. It is just, when I come home so tired, and then he ... I do not enjoy it. My ... my marital duties."
"Oh, my God ... He makes you do chores?!?

I've often said there's no such thing as a track record in TV. I seen people who created things much more successful than mine treated like dirt.

To forgive is an act of compassion ... It's not done because people deserve it. It's done because they need it.

You're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.

Shakespeare's language does not require a British accent. It requires a facility with language, and that's all.

Time for some thrillin' heroics.

If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

The news isn't there to tell you what happened. It's there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear.

I think everyone who makes movies should be forced to do television. Because you have to finish. You have to get it done, and there are a lot of decisions made just for the sake of making decisions. You do something because it's efficient and because it gets the story told and it connects to the audience.

Uh, hey, I got a idea. Instead of us hanging around playing art critic 'til I get pinched by the man, how's about we move away from this eerie-ass piece of work, and get on with our increasingly eerie-ass day. How's that?

Ultron: Stark asked for a savior, and settled for a slave.
The Vision: I suppose we're both disappointments.
Ultron: [laughs] I suppose we are.
The Vision: Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites and try to control what won't be. But there is grace in their failings. I think you missed that.
Ultron: They're doomed!
The Vision: Yes... but a thing isn't beautiful because it lasts. It is a privilege to be among them.
Ultron: You're unbelievably naïve.
The Vision: Well, I was born yesterday.