J. Michael Straczynski Quotations | Page 2

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.

Science fiction shows are traditionally about the gimmick or the gadget and tend to be emotionally cool to the touch.

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

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.

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.

On most TV shows, you work on a set and do some location.

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

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

You can only have one voice on set, and that has to be the director.

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

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...'

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.

Stun settings are for people who can't commit.

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

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.

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.

Find what scares you and do it.

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.

All love is unrequited. All of it.

I think for any writer, creating and controlling your own property is the ultimate dream.

I'm all for crossovers if they benefit the individual books.

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.

I am big believer 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.

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

I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks the use of an angelic (or seemingly angelic character), whose likes have been written about for, oh, about 4,000 years, is ripping off Star Trek, has his head so thoroughly up his ass as to have blipped into an entirely new intestinally-based reality and desperately needs to get a wider frame of reference.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It was the dawn of the third age of mankind...