Gene Roddenberry Quotes

I wanted to send a message to the television industry that excitement is not made of car chases. ~ Gene Roddenberry

I have always been reasonably leery of religion because there are so many edicts in religion, 'thou shalt not,' or 'thou shalt.' I wanted my world of the future to be clear of that. ~ Gene Roddenberry

I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will - and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain. ~ Gene Roddenberry

'Star Trek' is a 'Wagon Train' concept - built around characters who travel to worlds 'similar' to our own, and meet the action-adventure-drama which become our stories. Their transportation is the cruiser 'S.S. Yorktown,' performing a well-defined and long-range Exploration-Science-Security mission which helps create our format. ~ Gene Roddenberry

The human race is a remarkable creature, one with great potential, and I hope that 'Star Trek' has helped to show us what we can be if we believe in ourselves and our abilities. ~ Gene Roddenberry

Nuclear warfare is not necessary to cause a breakdown of our society. You take a large city like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago-their water supply comes from hundreds of miles away and any interruption of that, or food, or power for any period of time, you're going to have riots in the streets. Our society is so fragile, so dependent on the interworking of things to provide us with goods and services, that you don't need nuclear warfare to fragment us anymore than the Romans needed it to cause their eventual downfall. ~ Gene Roddenberry

You can use logic to justify just about anything, that's its power and it's flaw. ~ Captain Katherine Janeway

I'm in a period of growth and expansion. I'm taking long, hard looks at the world and what's happening in it, analyzing and thinking. I'm trying to become acquainted with the universe - with the part of it I occupy - and trying to settle, for myself, what my relationship with it is. ~ Gene Roddenberry

I wish I had more control, more like Edgar Rice Burroughs had, but I'm a realist, too. I work in television. I don't know that I would want to spend the rest of my life controlling my characters. ~ Gene Roddenberry

It is important to the typical 'Star Trek' fan that there is a tomorrow. They pretty much share the 'Star Trek' philosophies about life: the fact that it is wrong to interfere in the evolvement of other peoples, that to be different is not necessarily to be wrong or ugly. ~ Gene Roddenberry

Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow - it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids - human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard. And Star Trek is about those things. ~ Gene Roddenberry

There was much to put out of his mind. Why was it difficult to forget Chekov's astonished delight which greeted him at the command airlock when he boarded. And on the bridge - Kirk! The mere name made Spock groan inwardly as he remembered what it had cost him to turn away from that welcome. T'hy'la! ~ Gene Roddenberry

The present blitz about drugs - I think it looks very much like how we treated insane people 100 years ago
throw them in the cage - as if that's the whole answer. And it's not the whole answer. ~ Gene Roddenberry

I don't know if this has a moral or not. Maybe it's "Don't sit inside of soap cartons too long - unless you enjoy traveling. ~ Gene Roddenberry

The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity. ~ Gene Roddenberry

Art is really people asking the eternal question, "What is it all about?" ~ Gene Roddenberry

Let me end with an explanation of why I believe the move into space to be a human imperative. It seems to me obvious in too many ways to need listing that we cannot much longer depend upon our planet's relatively fragile ecosystem to handle the realities of the human tomorrow. Unless we turn human growth and energy toward the challenges and promises of space, our only other choice may be the awful risk, currently demonstrable, of stumbling into a cycle of fratricide and regression which could end all chances of our evolving further or of even surviving. ~ Gene Roddenberry

For me science fiction is a way of thinking, a way of logic that bypasses a lot of nonsense. It allows people to look directly at important subjects. ~ Gene Roddenberry

In the fifth season [of Star Trek: The Next Generation] viewers will see more of shipboard life [including] gay crew members in day-to-day circumstances. ~ Gene Roddenberry

Earth is the nest, the cradle, and we'll move out of it. ~ Gene Roddenberry

t is important to the typical 'Star Trek' fan that there is a tomorrow. They pretty much share the 'Star Trek' philosophies about life: the fact that it is wrong to interfere in the evolvement of other peoples, that to be different is not necessarily to be wrong or ugly. Gene Roddenberry ~ Gene Roddenberry

I believe in humanity. We are an incredible species. We're still just a child creature, we're still being nasty to each other. And all children go through those phases. We're growing up, we're moving into adolescence now. When we grow up - man, we're going to be something! ~ Gene Roddenberry

It has become a crusade of mine to demonstrate that TV need not be violent to be exciting. ~ Gene Roddenberry

Why a journey into space? Because science is now learning that the infinite reaches of our universe probably teem with as much life and adventure as Earth's own oceans and continents. Our galaxy alone is so incredibly vast that the most conservative mathematical odds still add up to millions of planets almost identical to our own - capable of life, even intelligence and strange new civilizations. Alien beings that will range from the fiercely primitive to the incredibly exotic intelligence which will far surpass Mankind. (The Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 8, 1966) ~ Gene Roddenberry

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. ~ Gene Roddenberry

In a better world, I can do anything. I'll be there in a better world. In a better world, they will not laugh at me or look down their nose at me. ~ Gene Roddenberry

Time is the fire in which we burn. ~ Gene Roddenberry

Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. [ ... ] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there. ~ Gene Roddenberry

Its seems to me - it's likely that heaven's here right now. If you could take life with its pain and misery, where you fail and you sometimes win, and if you package it into a game, people would pay a fortune to have this game. And I don't know that I'd want it to be resolved so peacefully that the game would be all over. ~ Gene Roddenberry

We stress humanity, and this is done at considerable cost. We can't have a lot of dramatics that other shows get away with - promiscuity, greed, jealousy. None of those have a place in 'Star Trek.' ~ Gene Roddenberry

Gene Roddenberry was a genius. ~ Persis Khambatta

You can't take this speck of dust in this midst of all this incredible panorama of birth and complexifying and say ... this is the only place that [life] happens. It's like turning your back on the whole idea of growth and evolution. ~ Gene Roddenberry

To be different is not necessarily to be ugly; to have a different idea is not necessarily to be wrong. The worst possible thing is for all of us to begin to look and talk and act and think alike. ~ Gene Roddenberry

I became a reader - thank God I became a reader. I lived in a dream world because it was a hell of a lot better world. ~ Gene Roddenberry

For Star Trek proves, as faulty as individual episodes could be, is that the much-maligned common man and common woman has an enormous hunger for brotherhood. They are ready for the twenty-third century now, and they are light-years ahead of their petty governments and their visionless leaders. ~ Gene Roddenberry

In the 24th century there will be no hunger, there will be no greed, and all the children will know how to read. ~ Gene Roddenberry

Your writing blows, by the by. You split more infinitives than Gene Roddenberry. ~ Brian K. Vaughan

If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear. ~ Gene Roddenberry

Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. ~ Gene Roddenberry

I'm not as optimistic as Gene Roddenberry was. I fall somewhere in the middle. But as a romantic, I like to think things are going to get bigger rather than worse. ~ J.J. Abrams

For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain. If people need religion, ignore them and maybe they will ignore you, and you can go on with your life. It wasn't until I was beginning to do Star Trek that the subject of religion arose. What brought it up was that people were saying that I would have a chaplain on board the Enterprise. I replied, No, we don't. ~ Gene Roddenberry

Can all this just be an accident? Or could there be some alien intelligence behind it? ~ Gene Roddenberry

Of course, I have Gene Roddenberry to thank for the creation of Barclay. ~ Dwight Schultz

It isn't all over; everything has not been invented; the human adventure is just beginning. ~ Gene Roddenberry

I don't think there is prejudice against atheists the same way there is prejudice against fat people. I don't think people hate or contemn atheists; I think people feel sorry for atheists. ~ Gene Weingarten

I was a huge fan of the Bruce Timm animated series and, of course, the live action 'Lois & Clark' series. I watched that when I was in college. ~ Gene Luen Yang

There's something about the intimacy of comics that gives you a false bravado; you don't always consider the consequences. ~ Gene Luen Yang

The hope in her voice now made me think of a flower growing in shadow. ~ Gene Wolfe

I don't intentionally spoil my grandkids. It's just that correcting them often takes more energy than I have left. ~ Gene Perret

Carl Barks and Don Rosa are two of my favorite cartoonists ever. ~ Gene Luen Yang

When I come to Chicago, I gorge myself. I get off the plane and start with Gene and Jude's for two hot dogs with everything, swing by The Fudge Pot for a taffy apple and a turtle, chocolate clusters at Sarah's Pastries and Candies and steak at Smith and Wollensky. I find time for Gino's pizza within the next 12 hours. ~ James Belushi

It seems to me, then, that vulnerability and and self-disclosure are at the heart of what we understand about the nature of God. And the reason I believe gay and lesbian people are spiritual people is that we too have participated in vulnerability and self-disclosure, especially in the process of coming-out. When someone shares with you who they really, really are, it is a special offering. To do so when it risks rejection is a profound, holy gift. ~ Gene Robinson

Reading can break us out of the tunnel vision of the narrow specialty and lead us into many intriguing and important avenues of thought. ~ Gene Edward Veith Jr.

The best offense is a good defense, but a bad defense is offensive. ~ Gene Wolfe

Any man who looks like a sissy while dancing is just a lousy dancer. ~ Gene Kelly

Life managed without males for its first billion years, much of which was passed as single cells in a series of warm ponds. Then, in some ancient and neutral Eden, the fruit of the tree of sexual knowledge - a new mutation - persuaded members of a particular clone to fuse with cells from another, and then to divide. That ingenious idea is good news for the novel gene, as it doubles its rate of spread, but is a lot less so for those who receive it, who are obliged to copy the extra DNA. At once, two factions emerge, one keen to force itself upon the other. Thus sex was invented.
Soon one contestant began to cheat. Large cells are expensive, but are better at dividing because they have more food reserves. Small cells are cheaper to make, but cannot afford to split. Their sole chance of success hence lies in fusion with a large cell. The first males had appeared on the scene. ~ Steve Jones

Misunderstanding literary form can result in misunderstanding Scripture. ~ Gene Edward Veith Jr.

Ask creative people where they get their ideas, and they will roll their eyes. It's the most common question, but it's also a bad one because the answer is inevitably disappointing. From the inside, creativity seems like an arduous task, often involving plebeian, imperfect choices, driven less by inspiration than by deadline. ~ Gene Weingarten

I'm bald, blind and pale. I'm like a gigantic recessive gene. ~ Jim Gaffigan

Chocolate is the greatest gift to women ever created, next to the likes of Paul Newman and Gene Kelly. It's something that should be had on a daily basis. ~ Sandra Bullock

You must carry the cross with Christ in this life. Soon enough there will come a time when you will no longer suffer. You will reign with God and He will wipe away your tears with His own hand. In His presence, pain and sighing will forever flee away. ~ Gene Edwards

Willpower is like a muscle. The more you train it, the stronger it becomes. Similarly, the less use it gets, the weaker it gets. ~ Kerry Gene

The fact that Gene Simmon's son is a manga-ka disturbs me more than whether he's really copying or not. ~ Tite Kubo

This week, penny collector Gene Sukie went to the bank and cashed in 10,000 pounds of pennies he had collected over 34 years, which were worth over 14,000 dollars. And, of course, I was in line behind him. ~ Tina Fey

His eyes say quite plainly that he once trusted someone, that he has been repenting it for longer than you or I have been alive, and that he will never take the chance again. ~ Gene Wolfe

What the fuck is this rubbish supposed to be? Special treatment? Ha, it isn't fucking Halloween, you oddball pack of Addams family rejects. I told you Mini-Morticia was a fucking freak and here's the proof. Looks like the whole family spend a little too much time swimming around in the murky end of the gene pool. ~ Jim Goforth

Religious fanatics are the worst. They're basically impossible to bargain with, they accept no outside opinion about anything, and they departed from reality well before you met them. ~ Gene Doucette

My brain subconsciously limits itself to panel compositions that my hand can actually draw. ~ Gene Luen Yang

I know men and women. An honourable man is an honourable man, and a liar is a liar; both are born and not made. One cannot change to the other any more than that same old leopard can change its spots.
After a man tells a woman the first untruth of that sort, the others come piling thick, fast, and mountain high. ~ Gene Stratton-Porter

Stability is why society has an interest in marriage. ~ Gene Robinson

I believe there is a reason such as autism, severe manic-depression, and schizophrenia remain in our gene pool even though there is much suffering as a result. ~ Temple Grandin

The result is a picture that represents so much of what I want and rarely get from a movie - a couple of hours filled with characters who are as exciting as the people I know in real life. ~ Gene Siskel

They knew so well how it felt, that they kept one bed in the boys' room, and any man who came at dusk got his supper, to sleep there, and his breakfast, and there never was anything to pay. The girls always scolded dreadfully about the extra washing, but mother said she slept on sheets when she came out, and some one washed them. ~ Gene Stratton-Porter

As I learned about the consequences of my food choices and as I recognized that I didn't have to eat animals, and that eating animals caused the animals to suffer, it caused an enormous footprint on our planet, and it wasn't healthy, it made since to go vegan. And, it's one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I think most people who've decided to go vegan share a similar experience. It's very empowering. And, when I went vegan I actually started eating a wide variety of foods I had never tried before. Different ethnic foods. You also start combining things in different ways, you start becoming more creative in the kitchen. But I went vegan just because it seemed to make sense, and it was aligned with my own values, because I didn't want to support this system that was so abusive to animals, and wasting and squandering so many scarce resources on our planet. And it was also healthier, so it was in my interest to eat food that was plant-based instead of animal-based. Living a vegan lifestyle makes a lot of sense. ~ Gene Baur

If we define "beauty" as having blue eyes (and only blue eyes), then we will, indeed, find a "gene for beauty." If we define "intelligence" as the performance on only one kind of test, then we will, indeed, find a "gene for intelligence." The genome is only a mirror for the breadth or narrowness of human imagination. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

For groups that made this political transition to egalitarianism, there was a quantum leap in the development of moral matrices. People now lived in much denser webs of norms, informal sanctions, and occasionally violent punishments. Those who could navigate this new world skillfully and maintain good reputations were rewarded by gaining the trust, cooperation, and political support of others. Those who could not respect group norms, or who acted like bullies, were removed from the gene pool by being shunned, expelled, or killed. Genes and cultural practices (such as the collective killing of deviants) coevolved. The end result, says Boehm, was a process sometimes called "self-domestication." Just as animal breeders can create tamer, gentler creatures by selectively breeding for those traits, our ancestors began to selectively breed themselves (unintentionally) for the ability to construct shared moral matrices and then live cooperatively within them. ~ Jonathan Haidt

There is no question that taking such an advocacy role in seeking compassion, fair treatment in the society, and the happiness and legal status of marriage for gay and lesbian people will get such advocates in trouble. Going against the prevailing culture almost always does. But we are in good company. Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you" (Matthew 5:10-12). ~ Gene Robinson

Any superhero, regardless of how different they are from Superman, recalls Superman in some way. They're either pushing against Superman or reflecting Superman; there's something about them that comes from Superman. ~ Gene Luen Yang

But he was thankful for the offer and dimly he was beginning to formulate in his mind the feeling that the world is made up of good people and bad people, of selfish people and thoughtful people, of cruel people and kind people, and it was merely a case of luck as to which kind you met when you went on a great adventure. ~ Gene Stratton-Porter

The wood wide web has been mapped, traced, monitored, and coaxed to reveal the beautiful structures and finely adapted languages of the forest network. We have learned that mother trees recognize and talk with their kin, shaping future generations. In addition, injured tress pass their legacies on to their neighbors, affecting gene regulation, defense chemistry, and resilience in the forest community. These discoveries have transformed our understanding of trees from competitive crusaders of the self to members of a connected, relating, communicating system. Ours is not the only lab making these discoveries-there is a burst of careful scientific research occurring worldwide that is uncovering all manner of ways that trees communicate with each other above and below ground. ~ Peter Wohlleben

There's bleeding between age groups in terms of reading material, and there's bleeding between media. So there are books that are clearly comics and books that are prose, and then there are these books that are kind of in-between. ~ Gene Luen Yang

The scornful force of his tone turned the word into a curse ~ John Knowles

Gene Colan was like no other artist of his generation. His ability to create dramatic, multi-valued tonal illustrations using straight India ink and board was unparalleled. ~ Jim Lee

Gene Autry was a pioneering star in the early days of music, radio, film, television and rodeo performances. I am proud to posthumously honor such an inspiring role model ~ Adam Schiff

I mentally savored the moment of America's triumph like a fine wine. ~ Gene Kranz

Like a duck on the pond. On the surface everything looks calm, but beneath the water those little feet are churning a mile a minute. ~ Gene Hackman

She's the gal in the red blue jeans. ~ Gene Vincent