Kurt Busiek Quotes

Marvel's got a crowded universe, and there are already so many characters hogging the spotlight that it's hard to break through that. First off, whatever character you're creating, odds are, there's already someone similar in one way or another. ~ Kurt Busiek

At one point, I worked up a list of five requirements for a superhero: superpowers, a costume, a code name, a mission, and a milieu. If the character had three out of the five, they were a superhero. But that's just my definition. ~ Kurt Busiek

When I realized that people actually wrote comics, that it was a job people could do, I thought, 'Gee, these things are only 17 pages long! I could probably finish one of those and find out whether I suck before I've spent five years of my life on it.' In stumbling into comics that way, I discovered that I loved the form. ~ Kurt Busiek

And I saw in them a hope...A hope that it was possible to have secrets, to mask one's true nature...and yet still to walk among men. ~ Kurt Busiek

I like superheroes. I like the drama of it, the stirring, larger-than-life aspect. ~ Kurt Busiek

The most fascinating powers don't mean a thing if the guy's poorly motivated or dull, and the most generic powers won't hurt a well-motivated character. Personality and motivation are what make Magneto, Magneto and not Cosmic Boy. The powers work for him, but it's his motivation that makes him the character he is. ~ Kurt Busiek

Maybe I had a 'secret identity,' but then when you think about it, don't we all? A part of ourselves very few people ever get to see. The part we think of as 'me.' The part that deals with the big stuff. Makes the real choices. The part everything else is a reflection of. ~ Kurt Busiek

Theme is great for people who like to approach stories that way, but it's an organizing principle that helps us write a story that has some weight; it's not something that all readers have to care about. ~ Kurt Busiek

I created lots of characters in high school and college, and the first character I created in pro comics was Liana, Green Lantern of M'Elu, for a backup story in 'Green Lantern #162,' my first professional sale. ~ Kurt Busiek

She said things that'd have sounded like cliches--but when they're said by the woman you love in the middle of the night, it's different.

I said things that sounded like cowboy-movie junk, even when they were coming out of my mouth. But I meant them. ~ Kurt Busiek

I tend to think that the best face of humanity is that we learn. We explore, we study, we think. ~ Kurt Busiek

That's the way it happens - some characters you set out to use, some are happy accidents. As long as it works, it doesn't really matter how you got them. ~ Kurt Busiek

I don't view Twitter as a promotional tool but as a really, really, really cool cocktail party. ~ Kurt Busiek

Who the hell is Warren Ellis again?"
Hardison gaped at the man. "Only one of the greatest comics writers in the past twenty years. Might as well ask who Alan Moore is, or Frank Miller, or Mark Waid, or Brian Michael Bendis, or Marv Wolfman, or Geoff Johns."

Eliot gave Hardison a blank look as they wove their way through the hall. Parker took the lead, toting a printed sign with her. Eliot and Hardison trailed in her wake. They made a point of striding right past Patronus's booth. They didn't turn to see if he noticed them.

"No one?" Hardison said. "Nothing? Not even Kurt Busiek? Neil Gaiman?"

"I have a life. I do things, active things. I date women."
"Stan Lee?"

Eliot gave Hardison that one with a wag of his head. "Who hasn't heard of Stan Lee?"

"All right," Hardison said with satisfaction. "You had me worried there, man. ~ Matt Forbeck

What really matters is not how well a character fits a definition, but how strongly he or she resonates. Characters with strong, resonant ideas at their core will have more of an impact on the cultural consciousness than a character who's just an empty collection of attributes. ~ Kurt Busiek

And is that why we do what we do? For public approval, for fame? Do we help people because they will be appropriately grateful--or merely because they need help? ~ Kurt Busiek

It strikes me that the only reason to take apart a pocket watch, or a car engine, aside from the simple delight of disassembly, is to find out how it works. To understand it, so you can put it back together again better than before, or build a new one that goes beyond what the old one could do. We've been taking apart the superhero for ten years or more; it's time to put it back together and wind it up, time to take it out on the road and floor it, see what it'll do. ~ Kurt Busiek

He was saving innocents and serving truth. And in the final judgement, what is more important? The burdens we bear -- or the way we bear them? ~ Kurt Busiek

Other examples of granfalloons are the Communist party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows - and any nation, anytime, anywhere. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

He ate a pear. It was a hard one. It fought back against his grinding teeth. It snapped in juicy protest. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

My uncle Alex Vonnegut, a Harvard-educated life insurance salesman who lived at 5033 North Pennsylvania Street, taught me something very important.
He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to NOTICE it. He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories: maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery; or fishing, and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing somebody all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door.
Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: If this isn't nice, what is? ~ Kurt Vonnegut

What is it artists do?" And I mumbled something. "They do two things," he said. "First, they admit they can't straighten out the whole universe. And then second, they make at least one little part of it exactly as it should be. A blob of clay, a square of canvas, a piece of paper, or whatever. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Pro wrestling was there, and I was good at it, thank God. I started getting a lot of offers, but unfortunately, at WWE I was under a tight leash. I think it had a lot to do with The Rock making the transition, and me possibly being the next guy - you know, the company didn't want to lose another top performer. ~ Kurt Angle

In his suicide note, Kurt Cobain wrote, "It's better to burn out than to fade away." He was quoting a Neil Young song about Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. When I was twenty-four, I interviewed John Lennon. I asked him about this sentiment, one that pervades rock and roll. He took strong, outraged exception to it. "It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out, " he said. "I worship people who survive. I'll take the living and the healthy. ~ David Sheff

I'm so happy 'cause today I've found my friends ... They're in my head. I'm so ugly, but that's okay, 'cause so are you. ~ Kurt Cobain

You are entitled to wonder. I'm not. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

This country is being managed to death, being public related to death. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Galapagos': Vonnegut Explores Big-Brain Theory
October 23, 1985, Elizabeth Mehren

The big trouble, in Kurt Vonnegut's view, is our big brains.

'Our brains are much too large,' Vonnegut said. 'We are much too busy. Our brains have proved to be terribly destructive.'

Big brains, Vonnegut said, invent nuclear weapons. Big brains terrify the planet into worrying about when those weapons will be used. Big brains are restless. Big brains demand constant amusement. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

All the new technology seems redundant to me. I was quite happy with the United States mail service. And, I don't even have an answering machine, for God's sake. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

The guide invited the crowd to imagine that they were looking across a desert at a mountain range on a day that was twinkling bright and clear. They could look at a peak or a bird or a cloud, at a stone right in front of them, or even down into a canyon behind them. But among them was this poor Earthling, and his head was encased in a steel sphere which he could never take off. There was only one eyehole through which he could look, and welded to that eyehole were six feet of pipe. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

A friend is nothing but a known enemy. ~ Kurt Cobain

Human beings in there took turns standing or lying down. The legs of those who stood were like fence posts driven into a warm, squirming, farting, sighing earth. The queer earth was a mosaic of sleepers who nestled like spoons. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

There is no such thing as collective guilt. ~ Kurt Waldheim

My father is incapable of showing much affection, or even of carrying on a conversation. I didn't want to have a relationship with him just because he's my blood relative. It would bore me. ~ Kurt Cobain

It has been said: The whole is more than the sum of its parts. It is more correct to say that the whole is something else than the sum of its parts, because summing up is a meaningless procedure, whereas the whole-part relationship is meaningful. ~ Kurt Koffka

If you can't learn about reading and writing from Kurt, maybe you should be doing something else. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

And now there was an acrimonious madrigal, with parts sung in all quarters of the car. Nearly everybody, seemingly, had an atrocity story of something Billy Pilgrim had done to him in his sleep. Everybody told Billy Pilgrim to keep the hell away. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I had a psychiatrist tell me that shyness is a form of hostility. They tell everybody that, you know. That was a couple of years ago, so I have had a long time to think about it. I have persuaded myself that it isn't true. It's fear and laziness and realism. It's an embarrassed apology which says in effect: Hey - I'm sorry, I probably don't like life as much as you do. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I have had all I can stand of not taking myself seriously. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

The paintings by dead men who were poor most of their lives are the most valuable pieces in my collection. And if an artist wants to really jack up the prices of his creations, may I suggest this: suicide. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Some automatic device clicked in her big brain, and her knees felt weak, and there was a chilly feeling in her stomach. She was in love with this man.
They don't make memories like that anymore ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Nim-nim was a banana-like fruit on Booboo. An immature ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Rock & roll is dying. It's frightening to think about the music scene 20 years from now. ~ Kurt Cobain

High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Yes, and let's make sure every American gets a puberty ceremony, an impressive welcome to the rights and duties of grown-ups. As matters now stand, only practicing Jews get those. The only way the rest of us can feel like grown-ups is to get pregnant or get somebody else pregnant or commit a felony or go to war and then come back again. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Believe everything you read ~ Kurt Cobain

Nobody ever went broke overestimating the vulgarity of the American people, ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I say she was strong. We all say she was strong. Yes, and in this bicentennial springtime we can say that she was like a legendary pioneer woman in her seeming strengths. We know now that she was only pretending to be strong - which is the best any of us can do. Of course, if you can pretend to be strong all your life, which is what Lavina did, then you can be very comforting to those around you. You can allow them to be childlike now and then. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

JOE HELLER

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.

I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel 'Catch-22'
has earned in its entire history?"
And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
Not bad! Rest in peace! ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

My wife has been killed by a machine which should never have come into the hands of any human being. It is called a firearm. It makes the blackest of all human wishes come true at once, at a distance: that something die.
There is evil for you.
We cannot get rid of mankind's fleetingly wicked wishes. We can get rid of the machines that make them come true.
I give you a holy word: DISARM. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I was selling real estate at the time, in Pacific Palisades, California, so imagine that: getting a note and a bottle of champagne from Jack Nicholson when I'd barely made a dime as an actor. It really kept me going. ~ Kurt Fuller

Life is divided up into phases. Each one is very different from the others, and you have to be able to recognise what is expected of you in each phase. That's the secret of successful living ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

This was because their English teachers would wince and cover their ears and give them flunking grades and so on whenever they failed to speak like English aristocrats before the First World War. Also: they were told that they were unworthy to speak or write their language if they couldn't love or understand incomprehensible novels and poems and plays about people long ago and far away, such as Ivanhoe. *** The black people would not put up with this. They went on talking English every which way. They refused to read books they couldn't understand - on the grounds they couldn't understand them. They would ask such impudent questions as, Whuffo I want to read no Tale of Two Cities? Whuffo? ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I had begun to see a new map of the world, one that was frightening in its simplicity, suffocating in its implications. We were always playing on the white man's court, Ray had told me, by the white man's rules. If the principal, or the coach, or a teacher, or Kurt, wanted to spit in your face, he could, because he had power and you didn't. If he decided not to, if he treated you like a man or came to your defense, it was because he knew that the words you spoke, the clothes you wore, the books you read, your ambitions and desires, were already his. Whatever he decided to do, it was his decision to make, not yours, and because of that fundamental power he held over you, because it preceded and would outlast his individual motives and inclinations, any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning. ~ Barack Obama

He ransacked his memory like a thief going through another man's billfold. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I believe so, but at first he must know. He must know in which spirit Beethoven has composed this piece. He must try to study that. And he must find out in which station of life of Beethoven he did. ~ Kurt Masur

My Uncle Alex, who is up in Heaven now, one of the things he found objectionable about human beings was that they so rarely noticed it when times were sweet. We could be drinking lemonade in the shade of an apple tree in the summertime, and Uncle Alex would interrupt the conversation to say, "If this isn't nice, what is?"
So I hope that you will do the same for the rest of your lives. When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, "If this isn't nice, what is? ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I remembered when I'd closed it up at the start of the war, remembered when I'd thought of the trunk as a coffin for the young man I would never be again ~ Kurt Vonnegut

The two chief teachings of this religion are these," said Rumfoord: "Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God. "Why ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

He was doing nothing less now, he thought, than prescribing corrective lenses for Earthling souls. So many of those souls were lost and wretched, Billy believed, because they could not see as well as his little green friends on Tralfamadore. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile. ~ Kurt Vonnegut