People used to laugh that academics would study Disney movies. There's nothing more important for academics to study because they shape the minds of our children possibly more than any single thing.
Live all of your life. Understand it see it appreciate it. And have fun.
I love all genres. The only thing I get stymied by is the Family Drama. I don't necessarily know how to approach that.
If the apocalypse comes...beep me!
I've become less cynical which is appalling but kind of cool.
To accept duality is to earn identity.
If I kill you you'll be awake you'll be facing me and you'll be armed.
Shakespeare's language does not require a British accent. It requires a facility with language and that's all.
Okay uh I'm lost. I'm angry. And I'm armed.
There's a lot of anger in the Twitter-verse as I've discovered. But there's a lot of love.
I'm a very hard-line angry atheist. Yet I am fascinated by the concept of devotion.
Buffy Anne Summers 1981-2001 Beloved sister Devoted Friend She saved the world A lot
Buffy loves Angel. He loves her. And I love Ho Hos.
Angel when I look into the future all I see is you! All I want is you. I know the feeling.
I don't tend to write straight dramas where real life just impinges. But because I don't when I do it is very interesting to slap people in the face with just an absolute of life.
I used to write chronologically when I started from beginning to end. Eventually I went 'That's absurd; my heart is in this one scene therefore I must follow it.'
Science fiction is like a blender - you can put in any historical experience and take influences from everything you see read or experience.
I'll take crazy over stupid any day.
It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another. -- Malcolm Reynolds
A writer is supposed to have anonymity.
I don't have a ton of enemies. I get along with people pretty well when I'm not annoying them to death.
My life has included a study of Shakespeare and to me it's very natural but I know that it's not always accessible to other people.
Every...subsection of liberalism is always busy attacking another subsection of liberalism because god forbid they should all band together and actually fight for the cause.
I am a fan of sequels even though they are inevitably awful.
Never sit at a table you can't walk away from.
Angelus: Now that's everything huh? No weapons... No friends...No hope. Take all that away... and what's left? Buffy: Me.
I cannot abide useless people.
A lot of people who saw 'The Avengers' didn't read comic books don't like comic book movies and enjoyed it. That was huge for me.
My deal with Marvel is I have a consulting deal with them as well as a contract to make 'Avengers.' That means I'll read all the scripts I'll look at cuts.
I loved working with 'The Avengers' cast and we had a great time but it was a job and they had other commitments during that job so they would go off and do other things.
How do you know your Colossus is the genuine article in the first place? I read his mind. I matched his DNA. I smelled him. I also did that.
All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet -- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you.
On one level I must never lose touch with my audience. But I must at some point stop trying to get everybody to like me and be true to the thing I think I need to say.
I was never a games night guy but at some point social interaction starts to freak me out. So when there's a point it's easier for me to see the people I love and hang out and try to have fun.
You can't be a storyteller and a speechwriter at the same time.
Peace comes from the acceptance of the part of you that can never be at peace.
It's not any huge secret that I'm an atheist.
Whatever makes you weird is probably your greatest asset.
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.
Buffy' is about growing up. 'Angel' is really about already having grown up dealing with what you've done and redemption.
That wouldn't be a first now would it?" "Jean." "Jean Grey is dead Agent." "Yeah that'll last.
I hate it when people talk about Buffy as being campy... I hate camp I don't enjoy dumb TV. I believe Aaron Spelling has single-handedly lowered SAT scores.
I like horror; I like comedy; I like drama; I like action; I like female heroes.
I've never met a well-adjusted person. It's weird.
Something like 'Much Ado' happens and even 'Avengers' happens because of the years of building connections and doing the work and proving yourself.
Everybody who made it through adolescence is a hero.
I was very proud of my father and I admired him but I always thought he was more interesting than the shows he was working on.
I'm very much more interested in the created family than I am in actual families.
Actors wait tables directors work at video stores.
Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.
Always be yourself... unless you suck.
Remember to always be yourself.
There's a reason Tony Stark makes fun of 'Thor ' and mentions 'Shakespeare' in the park in 'The Avengers.' It's great to play high drama and comedy alongside a modern story.
Absolutely eat dessert first. The thing that you want to do the most do that.
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.
So no more running. I aim to misbehave.
The Internet community started forming right when 'Buffy' started airing and the notion of a show creator being anything other than a name people recognize on the screen was completely new.
The thing with the comics is that you have license to go down every alley your brain can think of.
It's about women. It's about power and it's about women and you just hate those two words in the same sentence don't you?
Most people don't see Hamlet as an old bald guy.
I'm a science fiction geek from birth - that's just who I am.
The only bitterness I had is: Where is the conversation on gender? That's been going on since there have been men and women and still we're not hearing about what they're going through.
I still believe that even though 'The Empire Strikes Back' is better in innumerable ways than 'Star Wars ' 'Star Wars' wins.
I'm working on Buffy: Deep Space Nine . It will be dark and badly received.
Lockheed! You found me! You are the best X-Dragon ever.
I've never watched reality shows except for the Great British Bake Off which is magnificent.
Paul Hollywood's "You're under baked" is even better than "You're fired.
There is nothing more painful in the world than Aly when she makes her big eyes. She makes her big hurt eyes there's nothing you can do. She just kills you.
What Sarah brings to the part is her intelligence at the same time she's got that hormonal idiosyncratic goofiness that makes Buffy not just the Terminator.
In other news it's been far too long since I gloated massively about the fact that I know what's going to happen on Buffy and you all don't.
The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.
He's like Super Librarian y'know? Everyone forgets Willow that knowledge is the ultimate weapon.
If every vampire who said he was at The Crucifixion was actually there it would have been like Woodstock . . .
There are some things I can just smell. It's like a sixth sense." "Well actually that would be one of the five.
Cordelia: I personally don't think it's possible to come up with a crazier plan. Oz: We attack the Mayor with hummus. Cordelia: I stand corrected. Oz: Just keeping things in perspective.
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 got a bunch of people together to talk about doing a lot and decided that I really want to throw my hand in and do as much as I can.
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.'
[Donald Trump] thinks in tiny little bursts - the way he tweets.
The networks have a particular agenda a particular model and structure. It doesn't have anything to do with content. This is not a dis on them - they are a business model run by business people.
War is not just the business of death it is the antitheses of life.
I get recognized just often enough to keep my ego bouncing along but not so much that I can't go places.
Try taking a stand on just one leg. You need to see both sides.
I can do web comic books macrame art.
Xander don't speak Latin in front of the books.
I like Victorian children's novels extremely a lot. If I would say I collect anything that's what I'll hunt for now and again at old book stores.
I eat 'The Walking Dead' like its made of brains. Can't even watch the show I love the book so much.
I set out in television with one simple goal: to purchase a Russian bride. Didn't work out. Immigration stuff - it's complicated.
I write to give myself strength.
There is always backlash. Everything gets backlash.
I never give up on anything because you come back around and suddenly the thing you thought you'd never do is relevant.
That all you got...Bub?
Shiny let's be bad guys!
I don't want to create responsible shows with lawyers in them. I want to invade people's dreams.
If you can't do something smart do something right.
I kept telling my mom that reading comic books would pay off.
I think 'Batman Begins' is certainly my favorite Batman movie I've seen.
Wonder Woman isn't Spider-man or Batman. She doesn't have a town she has a world. That was more interesting to me than a kind of contained rote superhero franchise.
It's not enough to bash in heads. You've got to bash in minds.
Back in my day which was about a week and a half ago we took our lumps and we got back up and we cried like babies and quit and then put on weight.
I have a desperate longing to have a desperate longing
Obsession is beautiful. It's what makes art.
Writing is the greatest thing that can happen to a human being. It's the best.
I love to write. I love it. I mean there's nothin in the world I like better and that includes sex probably because I'm so very bad at it.
I am a great believer in found families and I'm not a great believer in blood.
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.
What you cut out becomes part of the story you tell.
You don't buy a Picasso because you love the frame.
Captain I think you have a problem with your brain being missing.
Every writer loves the idea of being able to go in and fix a problem and then leave without obligation. It's fun!
As far as I am concerned the first episode of Buffy was the beginning of my career. It was the first time I told a story from start to finish the way I wanted.
I love a straightforward character. I am the guy who loves Cyclops on the 'X-Men' because he is square.
If you can't run you crawl. If you can't crawl-- you find someone to carry you.
My visions of the future are always pretty much standard issue. The rich get richer the poor get poorer and there are flying cars.
Casting is storytelling.
Time is what turns kittens into cats.
Everything is a drug. Family art causes new shoes"¦ We're all just tweaking our chem to avoid the void.
I don't think I'm a celebrity. Maybe I'm a cult figure?
The one thing a creator can bring to the table when everybody else has all the money and power is centeredness and the ability to walk away. Never sit at a table you can't walk away from.
The master plan does not have a master plan. Television ultimately finds itself and after it finds itself it finds itself changing.
The thing about changing the world... Once you do it the world's all different.
You take people you put them on a journey you give them peril you find out who they really are.
I write to be the characters that I am not.
If you're someone who genuinely believes that women don't deserve or aren't as much as men you're like the plague. On the big history chart you're the plague... It's just pointless and deadly.
If you're going to make a science fiction movie then have a hover craft chase for God's sake.
I've seen [Trump] appear in a film or a TV show cameo or the tabloids and he's a grotesquely distasteful human being and always has been always made me want to take a shower.
We had the camera locked but not the location of the sun.
Love is for children. I owe him a debt.
Doctor I'm taking your sister under my protection. If any thing happens to her anything at all I swear to you I will get very choked up. Honestly there could be tears.
In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.
The fact of the matter is fame predates even the age of cinema.
I think Hillary Clinton is vastly intelligent and good-hearted and extremely qualified.
I generally think that Hillary Clinton is a good egg and a good politician.
I've been a Hillary Clinton supporter for a long time and I know that is not actually a popular position.
Very occasionally if you pay really close attention life doesn't suck.
I would love to give you a more in-depth coherent explanation of my view of the soul and if I had one I would. The soul and my concept of it are as ephemeral as anybody's and possibly more so.
Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing.
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.
My mom is a teacher my dad was a writer for television his dad was a writer for television and combining those two has been sort of the goal of my life.
My favorite part of Comic-Con? The groupies.
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.
My favorite part of Comic-Con? The groupies. Man they have loose morals really. Men women I'm just saying that it gets weird on Sunday night. No that's sadly never happened.
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.
Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn.
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 respect the rules of TV the rules of keeping things commercial and interesting and pop-y and fun.
I think Spider-Man [film] the first one particularly really figured out the formula of "Oh tell the story that they told in the comic. It was compelling. That's why it's iconic.
To me the most telling thing is we have a man [Donald Trump] who cannot complete a sentence.
Writers are completely out of touch with reality.
There's some great reality TV and I'm not bagging on it completely.
In TV there's so much compromise it does start to grate a bit. But if you're a writer or an actor it really is the place to be.
I have a pathological fear of confrontation. I'm working on that.
Every time somebody opens their mouth they have an opportunity to do one of two things - connect or divide.
Identity is something that you are constantly earning.
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
People with real power never fear of losing it. People with control think of little else.
I'm not a control freak - I'm a control enthusiast.
Kristen Stewart is kind of captivating; she can just stare at stuff and it works because I still want to watch it.
I don't want the giant ego. I don't want to become Kevin Costner singing on the soundtrack to The Postman.
In production in the first couple of weeks of production that it was more like making an internet musical.
You are talking crazy-person talk. Put your words in word places please.
It's very important that we start creating new content again. We can only build on nostalgia so much before we have nothing left to build on.
Take my love take my land Take me where I cannot stand I don't care I'm still free You can't take the sky from me
I keep thinking they're gonna call me. I keep thinking they're gonna crunch the numbers and think oh we can make money with this! And they don't.
Stay crunchy even in milk.
Do you love me? What? Do you? I love you. I don't know if I trust you. Maybe you shouldn't do either. Maybe I'm the one who should decide!
No one's going to go see the story of Othello going to get a peaceful divorce.
I also don't trust Caribou anymore. They're out there on the tundra waiting... Something's going down. I'm right about this.
A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend
You have a responsibility to listen to the dissent in yourself.
I always was an early-morning or late-night writer. Early morning was my favorite; late night was because you had a deadline. And at four in the morning you make up some of your most absurd jokes.
The Sixth Sense' is fine the second time around but honestly the first time around it's dazzling.
You can't just throw people at all your problems dear.
Psychic though? That sounds like something out of science fiction. We live in a space ship dear.
Women all live a double standard.
You either believe women are people or you don't. It's that simple.
I don't like uncertainty. I don't play poker. I don't like bluffing.
I have had a dream my whole life... and it was not this good.
I wanted to drag Shakespeare from obscurity. I've been a fan my whole life.
You think we're dancing?" "That's all we've ever done.
It's a fun thing to do to put yourself in the service of something if you think you can add an interpretation. It's no different than any other storytelling.
Every kid who hated grownups becomes a grownup. Well except the ones who died.
Who is to say who is the villain and who is the hero? Probably the dictionary.
I leave the world in terrible turmoil. I come back same turmoil. Nothing at all different. Well outfits are a little different...
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.
My dad would go to work every day and write in a room full of funny people. He enjoyed it. I know great writers who find the process agonising but to me writing has always been sheer joy.
Make it dark make it grim make it tough but then for the love of God tell a joke.
Recognizing power in another does not diminish your own.
And by the way it's not about making money it's about taking money. Destroying the status quo because the status is not quo. The world is a mess and I just need to rule it.
Forgiveness is like a great act of compassion. That it was done not because someone deserved it but because they needed it.
I'm totally cool. I'm totally calm and I'm totally cool. My calm is exceeded only by my cool. Which is total. Here we go.
Every day's a negotiation and sometimes it's done with guns.
You learn something every time you make a mistake.
Even in the darkness every color can be found. And every day of rain brings water flowing to things growing in the ground.
The secret to multitasking is that it isn't actually multitasking. It's just extreme focus and organization.
I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of.
What I love most about icons is finding out what's behind them exploring the price of their power.
The greatest expression of rebellion is joy.
You know the thing that I do to waste time is think of things I want to make. That's how my mind is employed.
Ultimately what I end up writing about is helplessness and the flipside of that empowerment.
Two things that matter to me. Emotional resonance and rocket launchers.
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.
I always believe in just have as much fun as you can so that when you're in the part that you hate there's a light at the end of the tunnel that you're close to finished.
You can either watch TV or you can make TV.
Someone else's loss is my chocolatey goodness
I am the immaculate embodiment of worlds.
I like to think that I'm a populist entertainer but I'm a little bit idiosyncratic and sometimes the networks wouldn't really roll with that.
People love a happy ending. So every episode I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy.
Those of us who write spend our entire lives in an endless English class.
The English Language is my bitch. Or I don't speak it very well. Whatever.
Sadly I hate foreigners. And Americans. And animals. And flora and some fauna. Also the magma that is the very core of this our mother earth. I'm full o' hate!
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.
Let freedom ring unless it's on vibrate.
Personally the NSA collecting data on me freaks me out. It totally freaks me out. And yet I'm from the generation that wants to put a GPS in their kids so I always know where they are.
Hey this is weird. I ordered one frozen yogurt and they gave me two. You don't happen to like frozen yogurt do you? I love it! You're kidding! What a crazy random happenstance!
I'm not great at fear. I made the least frightening vampire show ever on TV. I'm pretty much good at heroic narratives and making people laugh and that's pretty much it.
We need narrative; it feeds us in a particular way and deconstructing it completely before you've actually experienced it I think it leaves us unfed.
I didn't know feminism was actually a thing until I left home and found out the country didn't run the way my mom's house did
I was raised by a hardcore feminist.
I've been to two festivals in my life and I've never been to Toronto. I haven't really been making festival movies. This is new territory for me.
People only respond to fear.
One of my favourite sorts of actors...the rat actor. The rat actor knows his job and gets it 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.
You can't take the sky from me.
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
We have done the impossible. And that makes us mighty.
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar!
I'm well aware when they fired the starting gun I was halfway down the track but I still ran as fast as I could for 25 years.
When you're making a film you have an obligation to fill the frame with life.
I usually write things in my head before I ever write them down. When I write it out usually I've already figured out what it is I'm trying to do.
Redemption is something you have to fight for in a very personal down-dirty way. Some of our characters lose that some stray from that and some regain it.
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.
There's a fine line between support and stalking and let's all stay on the right side of that.
I believe the only reality is how we treat each other. The morality comes from the absence of any grander scheme not from the presence of any grander scheme.
Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women.
For me the act of telling the story and showing it to somebody is almost gravy.
A great scientist is more open to a new idea than almost anybody.
I don't have a particular ambition in any medium. I just want to keep telling stories. If somebody pays me also good.
The only way to real mature love is to get past the tropes of what we consider 'romance.'
They can take everything away from me but they can never take my pride unless I somehow get some.
That's the great thing about 'The West Wing:' you really felt like you were in the thick of it.
I never tire of the heroes that I knew growing up.
Don't give me songs give me something to sing about!
I'm a very gentle man not unlike Gandhi.
I'm pretty much good at heroic narratives and making people laugh.
In the time of gods and monsters what is the worth of a man?
Horror movies don't exist unless you go and see them and people always will.
The rules are very important in a horror movie.
I'm never interested in movies where you don't care about the people you're watching and that's my biggest quibble about horror that kids have gotten stupider and stupider.
I think it's not inaccurate to say that I had a perfectly happy childhood during which I was very unhappy.
The more power that we have the less human we are.
I do have screenplays I've written that never saw the light of day but I don't usually go back to them. When I've told a story I want to tell another story.
We don't need heroes so much as recognizing ourselves as heroes.
I don't understand why or how anyone ever pulled off the whole idea of 'women are inferior.'
If I had created reality television I would have had a much greater influence but then I would have had to KILL MYSELF.
I'll always protect what I'm working on. Which is why more and more of it is stuff only I can ruin.
If nothing we do matters then all that matters is what we do.
I'm not big on regret. It's not on my schedule.
I believe we are the only sentient beings in the universe and I believe that 500 years from now we will still be the only sentient beings around.
I don't think I'm like Shakespeare.
I always watch what I say. I am what I say.
The stupidest person in the room might have the best idea.
I did my English A level in England and we studied Shakespeare. I had great great high school teachers and we parsed the text within an inch of its life.
We are all of us incoherent text and just knowing that - knowing that no matter how much you say 'I am this' and part of you is not that - means that you can say it.
I never wanted to take a job because I needed money and I never have.
Don't just be yourself. Be all of your selves.
Don't just be yourself. Be all of yourself. Don't just live. Be that other thing connected to death. Be life. Live all of your life. Understand it see it appreciate it. And have fun.
How did you find me here? If I was blind I would see you. Stay with me. Forever. That's the whole point. I'll never leave. Not even if you kill me.
Beautiful revelations of power are often written by the guy who got kicked around and didn't have any power.
Loneliness is about the scariest thing out there.
Sketchy: I'm no stranger to stoner logic.
TV does a thing that film can never do. It takes you to a place that no novel written after the late 19th century can. You can just go through people's lives; it's like a marriage.
I love comics very much and I love being alone but I also love the other part. I love actors and I love filmed entertainment and that is not something I plan to turn my back on.
As we all know blinking lights means science.
Life's a show and we all play a partAnd when the music startsWe open up our hearts
Politics glamor fame - they're all mixed up together and they always have been.
Every vampire fiction reinvents vampires to its own needs. You take what you want.
Oddly enough I never studied writing. I studied almost everything except writing.
I tend to tell stories that have a lot of momentum; it's not like 'and then months later...' I like things where the momentum of one action rolls into the next one so everything is the sum of that.
I mean I knew I wasn't a nice person but what did I do in my past life to deserve this? I must have hit a bus full of nuns while driving a stolen car on my way to selling drugs to schoolchildren!
The world is scary and things are overwhelming and there's a lot at stake.
Hillary Clinton is more in the center of things than I am but she also knows how to work with the opposition which is a necessary talent in politics right now.
Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it sauté it whatever. MAKE.
Veronica solves little puzzles because she like all of us cannot unravel the bigger ones.
Don't give people what they want give them what they need.
I'd rather make a show 100 people need to see than a show that 1000 people want to see.
What's plan b?' 'We all die now.' 'What's plan c?
You give my regards to St. Peter or whoever has his job but in Hell.
There's a time and place for everything and I believe it's called 'fan fiction'.
Let's put it this way: If a raccoon can carry a movie then they believe maybe even a woman can.
Especially I think living in any fantasy or science fiction world means really understanding what you're seeing and reading really densely on a level that a lot of people don't bother to read.
TV's like whitewater rafting: Without rocks there wouldn't be rapids and it wouldn't be as much fun.
I am not made of steel. Rage. I...am made... of RAGE!!!!
I've been doing Shakespeare readings with my friends for years.
Can't stop the signal
Time for some thrillin' heroics.
This voting thing is actually beautiful. Not just necessary - it's a wonderful thing and it makes you powerful. And we've forgotten that in the most negative [president's] campaign in history.
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.
Every time you work on a project it's a little vacation from the project you're working on the other 23 hours. That's the thing - it replenishes you to do something else.