Joss Whedon
I didn't study writing. I didn't write anything substantial until I got to California.
I don't have a ton of enemies. I get along with people pretty well when I'm not annoying them to death.
I have a pathological fear of confrontation. I'm working on that.
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.
I have abused language. I love it, and I abuse it... I don't write just to be clever. But sometimes I do. And if you don't have an understanding of the language, then the way in which it's bent doesn't actually register.
I just love language. I mean, I love it. I love stage directions. Any opportunity to write. I hadn't written in so long, I get very crazy and miserable. I - it's like not seeing my kids: I can't do it for very long.
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 first gig ever was writing looplines for a movie that had already been made. You know, writing lines over somebody's back to explain something, to help make a connection, to add a joke, or to just add babble because the people are in frame and should be saying something.
The people who feel the most strongly about something will turn on you the most vociferously if they feel you've let them down.
I like horror; I like comedy; I like drama; I like action; I like female heroes.
Running a TV show is always running a TV show; it's never not running a TV show.
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.
The master plan does not have a master plan. Television ultimately finds itself, and after it finds itself, it finds itself changing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 go to movies expecting to have a whole experience. If I want a movie that doesn't end, I'll go to a French movie. That's a betrayal of trust to me. A movie has to be complete within itself; it can't just build off the first one or play variations.
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.
I don't like uncertainty. I don't play poker. I don't like bluffing.
What I do like is hiking. And that's what filmmaking is. It's a hike. It's challenging and exhausting, and you don't know what the terrain is going to be or necessarily even which direction you're going in... but it sure is beautiful.
I always want to make sure I'm telling a story about people that I care about.
My mom and dad were divorced, and although they got along very well, my mom thought American television was reprehensible, so I was raised on the BBC. I kind of agreed with her. We watched American news, though.
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.
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.
The thing with the comics is that you have license to go down every alley your brain can think of.
'Buffy' is about growing up. 'Angel' is really about already having grown up, dealing with what you've done, and redemption.
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.
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.
I always tend to think just left of center, to remove myself from the world by one step. It is very freeing, and it's a particular way of coming at stories and looking at them that I find the most beautiful stuff that I know comes from, ultimately.
I never tire of the heroes that I knew growing up. The fun is not that much different from doing a television show: You're stuck with a certain set of rules, and then, rather than trying to break them, it's just trying to peel away and see what's underneath them. That to me is really fun.
I never give up on anything, because you come back around, and suddenly the thing you thought you'd never do is relevant.
I'll always protect what I'm working on. Which is why more and more of it is stuff only I can ruin.
I respect television in a way that some people who came out of film might not.
Shakespeare's language does not require a British accent. It requires a facility with language, and that's all.
I'm very much more interested in the created family than I am in actual families.
I love TV in a way that I don't love any other medium.
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.
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.
Soon, I will be 'King of all Hollywoodland.'
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.
The musicals that I love on stage are generally meant for the stage.
That's the great thing about 'The West Wing:' you really felt like you were in the thick of it.
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.Collection: Hipster
Every time somebody opens their mouth they have an opportunity to do one of two things - connect or divide.Collection: Opportunity
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.Collection: Inspirational
Whatever makes you weird is probably your greatest asset.Collection: Introvert
Don’t just be yourself. Be all of yourselves. 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.Collection: Graduation