A biography for J. Michael Straczynskihasn’t been written yet.
“I also like to look at the dynamic that takes place between religion and science because, in a way, both are asking the same questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? The methodologies are diametrically opposed, but their motivation is the same; the wellspring is the same in both cases.”
“On a certain level, I don't think there is an answer to what the American way is, because it is constantly being re-defined. It's also been exploited and capitalized upon and politicized by one side or the other to the point that a certain degree of cynicism has attached itself to that term.”
“Everyone in the entertainment business gets crappy contracts when we start out, and into the middle of our careers. It's the nature of the business.”
“There's a lot of comics writers out there whose work I appreciate and who are nice guys. I really want to work with guys I really respect and enjoy.”
“There was a point when comics were considered to be mainly of interest to kids, and it was decided that kids could relate more to someone their own age than an adult. So suddenly all these previously grownup comics were lousy with sidekicks: Aquagirl, Aqualad, Robin, Kid Flash, Speedy, Stripesy... the list goes on.”
“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”
“Coming from TV and film, rule number one is that you always service the main character first and foremost. If that's not working, you've got nothing.”
“I sometimes find reality far more fantastical and unlikely than what I could just make up.”
“The point of mythology or myth is to point to the horizon and to point back to ourselves: This is who we are; this is where we came from; and this is where we're going. And a lot of Western society over the last hundred years - the last 50 years really - has lost that. We have become rather aimless and wandering.”
“Stage-persona notwithstanding, I'm extremely shy and quiet. Almost painfully shy. People misinterpret that as being above it all or not interested.”
“The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language.”
“Follow your passion. The rest will attend to itself. If I can do it, anybody can do it. It's possible. And it's your turn. So go for it. It's never too late to become what you always wanted to be in the first place.”
“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.”
“There's a rule of writing: if everything is funny, nothing is funny; if everything is sad, nothing is sad. You want that contrast.”
“A lot of the futuristic space stuff seemed to me to be a very cool form of science-fiction, so that was my first real baptism in the genre.”
“We know that if memory is destroyed in one part of the brain, it can be sometimes re-created on a different part of the brain. And once we can unravel that amino chain of chemicals that is responsible for memory, I see no reason why we can't unlock it and, essentially, wipe out what's there.”
“I've written for every medium except poetry, at which I suck.”
“I like writing. It's partly control freak, and partly I really like what I do for a living. I have the luckiest job in the world. I can get up every day and do what I love for a living.”
“There are those who seem to feel they have no choice about being jerks in the present because they had a crappy childhood. Well, that's the definition of childhood; nobody gets out alive. You either get stronger from what you experience, or you turn it into a crutch, an excuse, a dodge.”
“Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world -- "No, YOU move.”