Frank Miller Quotes & Sayings

Think of me as the weathered sheriff coming back into Dodge 'cause the youngsters are shooting up the church and scaring the horses and not doing right by the women. — Frank Miller

People are attempting to bring a superficial reality to superheroes which is rather stupid. They work best as the flamboyant fantasies they are. I mean, these are characters that are broad and big. I don't need to see sweat patches under Superman's arms. I want to see him fly. — Frank Miller

You do Batman right, and he's going to be popular. He's a great character. I was once asked by somebody if writing 'Batman' was like holding a Ming vase or something. And I said, 'No, it's like holding a big-ass diamond that you can't break. You can throw him against the ceiling, against the floor, anywhere, and you just can't break Batman.' — Frank Miller

When you got a condition, it's bad to forget your medicine. — Frank Miller

What I want to bring back to superheroes with this project is a sense of play. Things have gotten so dreary. The heroes have gotten so ugly that even their muscles have muscles. — Frank Miller

Sometimes the solitary voice can be the best one. — Frank Miller

The larger-than-life thing is definitely what I'm after. I've always drawn dark stories. Occasionally, I'll try a perfect hero, but it's a real stretch for me. I like 'em warts and all, and obsessive and weird. — Frank Miller

You sold us out, Clark. You gave them the power that should have been ours. Just like your parents taught you. My parents taught me a different lesson ... lying on this street ... shaking in deep shock ... dying for no reason at all. They showed me that the world only makes sense when you force it to. — Frank Miller

The comics I read as a kid were all about guys in tights. But here was a guy who wore a fedora. He fought crime like they did in Marvel and DC, but he did it in the real world. I had just turned 12 when I met the Spirit and it was a strange coincidence. At the same time I discovered girls I fell out of love with guys in tights. — Frank Miller

In the comic-book world, there tends to be an overblown sense of tradition. Bad habits die hard. There are ways I think the form could work more effectively if we lost the bad habits that were created before we were born. — Frank Miller

The American conscience died with the Kennedys. — Frank Miller

Give them nothing, but take from them everything. — Frank Miller

A man without hope is a man without fear. — Frank Miller

I'm a spoilt brat. I thought I was just going to walk in and make movies. But I'd been my own boss for so long that all of a sudden to be facing a roomful of people who were niggling over every little scene ... I just thought I'd go back and draw my comics and have a happy life. — Frank Miller

Where I would fault President Bush the most was that, in the wake of 9/11, he motivated our military, but he didn't call the nation into a state of war. And he didn't explain that this would take though a communal effort against common foe. — Frank Miller

Marv's a guy you've got to be careful around. He doesn't mean any harm, but he causes plenty. — Frank Miller

My feeling is that the hero has now been defined by phrases like the odious one that we were all raised with - crimes does not pay. Of course it pays, you schmuck. That's not why we don't do it. We don't do it because it is wrong. — Frank Miller

I moved to New York and was told, "Go back home. We don't need you. Go pump gas. You're from Vermont. We've got no use for you. You're not drawing guys in tights." So, I learned how to draw guys in tights, and I put them in as many crime situations as I could. — Frank Miller

I can tell you squat about Islamism. But I know a lot about Al Quaeda, and they need to burn in hell. — Frank Miller

You've got rights. Lots of rights. Sometimes I count them just to make myself feel crazy. — Frank Miller

I'm a comic book artist. So I think to myself, what do I like to draw? I like to draw hot chicks, fast cars and cool guys in trench coats. So that's what I write about. — Frank Miller

A gun is a liar's weapon — Frank Miller

I realized that I was about to turn 30, and Batman was permanently 29. And I was going to be damned if I was older than Batman. — Frank Miller

News objectivity is a twentieth-century myth. We only complain about propaganda when we don't agree with it. — Frank Miller

A screenwriter is much like being a fire hydrant with a bunch of dogs lined up around it. — Frank Miller

The world doesn't make sense until you force it to. — Frank Miller

Alfred: Hmf. I suppose you'll take up flying next, like that fellow in Metropolis. — Frank Miller

A gun is a coward's weapon. A liar's weapon.We kill.. too often.. because we've made it easy.. too easy.. sparing ourselves the mess.. and the work.. — Frank Miller

Dames. Sometimes all they got to do is let it out and a few buckets later there's no way you'd ever know. — Frank Miller

In a way, 'Sin City's designed to be paced somewhere between an American comic book and Japanese manga. Working in black and white, I realized that the eye is less patient, and you have to make your point, and sometimes repeat it. Slowing things down is harder in black and white, because there isn't as much for the eye to enjoy. — Frank Miller

Hollywood is a town; it's not a medium. And cinema is a medium you can practice anywhere. — Frank Miller

This should be agony. I should be a mass of aching muscle - broken, spent, unable to move. And, were I an older man, I surely would ... but I'm a man of thirty - of twenty again. The rain on my chest is a baptism - I'm born again ... — Frank Miller

It's not movies and it's not "fine art." The beauty of a comic is that it's clear, direct communication. My work is getting simpler and more cartoony because I'm much more interested in communication now than in any illustrative value. — Frank Miller

I thought Daredevil was kind of cool because he couldn't do anything. I mean, he's blind. It wasn't that he could fly. His major power was an impediment. So I was intrigued. When I took over he was kind of like Spider-Man-lite, but I was able to project a lot of my Catholic imagery onto it. And I'd always wanted to do a crime comic. — Frank Miller

DWIGHT:
Stay smart. Stay cool. It's time to prove to you're friends that you're worth a damn.
Sometimes that means dying.
Sometimes it means killing a whole lot of people. — Frank Miller

I'm not going to complain about the fact that people are paying attention to my work. I suppose that wouldn't be fair. — Frank Miller

Spartans... tonight we dine in Hell! — Frank Miller

I check the list. Rubber tubing, gas, saw, gloves, cuffs, razor wire, hatchet, Gladys, and my mitts. — Frank Miller

Deadly little Miho. She won't let you feel a thing unless she wants you to. She twists the blade. He feels it. — Frank Miller

The day you write to please everyone you no longer are in journalism. You are in show business. — Frank Miller

Most people think Marv is crazy, but I don't believe that.
I'm no shrink and I'm not saying I've got Marv all figured out or anything, but "crazy" just doesn't explain him. Not to me. Sometimes I think he's retarded, a big, brutal kid who never learned the ground rules about how people are supposed to act around each other. But that doesn't have the right ring to it either. No, it's more like there's nothing wrong with Marv, nothing at all
except that he had the rotten luck of being born at the wrong time in history. He'd have been okay if he'd been born a couple of thousand years ago. He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an ax into somebody's face. Or in a roman arena, taking a sword to other gladiators like him.
They'd have tossed him girls like Nancy, back then. — Frank Miller

You can't have virtue without sin. What I'm after is having my characters' virtues defined by how they operate in a very sinful environment. That's how you test people. — Frank Miller

What's happened with computer technology is perfectly timed for someone with my set of skills. I tell stories with pictures. What I love about CGI is that if I can think it, it can be put on the screen. — Frank Miller

I think most things I read on the Internet and in newspapers are propaganda. Everyone from the 'New York Times' to Rupert Murdoch has a point of view and is putting forth their own propaganda. They're stuck with the facts as they are, but the way they interpret and frame them is wildly different. — Frank Miller

Hell's waking up every goddamn day and not even knowing why you're here. — Frank Miller

Nancy's got a guardian angel. Seven feet plus of muscle and mayhem that goes by the name of Marv. — Frank Miller

Go now, run along and tell your Xerxes that he faces free men here, not slaves — Frank Miller

You're beginning to get the idea, Clark. We could have changed the world ... now ... look at us ... I've become a political liability ... and ... you ... you're a joke. I want you to remember, Clark ... in all the years to come ... in your most private moments ... I want you to remember ... my hand ... at your throat ... I want ... you to remember ... the one man who beat you. — Frank Miller

I'll make it. I won't die. I've got too much I have to do to let myself die. — Frank Miller

You can never escape me. Bullets don't harm me. Nothing harms me. But I know pain. I KNOW pain. Sometimes I share it. With someone like you. — Frank Miller

Of course we're Criminals — Frank Miller

Buddy, I don't mean to poke my nose in where it don't belong, but that there is a dame to kill for. Why'd you let her go? — Frank Miller

My Sin City heroes are knights in dirty, blood-caked armor. They bring justice to a world that gives them no medals, no praise, no reward. That world, that city, often kills them for their brave service. — Frank Miller

Hydarnes: When we attack today, our arrows will blot out the sun!
Leonidas: Good; then we will fight in the shade. — Frank Miller

The fundament of a superhero is the guy in tights saving innocent people from bad things. It's amazing how infrequently that seems to happen in superhero comics these days. — Frank Miller

Comics are so full of amazing work. And I can't look at a drawing of a woman without thinking of, for instance, Wallace Wood and his amazing way of capturing beauty. — Frank Miller

I love the rain. It helps me think. — Frank Miller

It was said Daredevil grew up in Hell's Kitchen, an amazing name for a neighbourhood. But that opened a Pandora's box of all the crime stuff I wanted to do. I borrowed liberally from Will Eisner's 'The Spirit' and turned 'Daredevil' into a crime comic. — Frank Miller

An old man dies, a little girl lives. Fair trade. — Frank Miller

It's one thing to be sitting at a drawing board, alone in your home and coming up with a fantasy character, and drawing her whichever way you feel like drawing, then dealing with a real performer. All of a sudden, things change. It's amazing, in working with actors, how much I learn from them and how many new lines will come to mind because of their personality or their strengths. — Frank Miller

When you have a brush in your hand, inking a beautiful woman is a lot like running your hands over her. — Frank Miller

You don't get it boy ... this isn't a mudhole ... its an operating table. (KRAKKKKK) And I'm the surgeon. — Frank Miller

I don't do a comic book thinking there is a movie. I just want it to be as good a comic book as it can be. — Frank Miller

The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time. — Frank Miller

Comic-book pages are vertical, and movie screens are relentlessly horizontal. But it's all the same form. We use different tools, but we get the job done. I'm completely in love with CGI. It's great for conveying a cartoonist's sense of reality. — Frank Miller

I was always into noir. When I lived in Vermont I was drawing stuff that looked like an amateur doing Sin City. When I first got to New York I was swiftly informed that they only did guys in tights. — Frank Miller

You don't get it son. This isn't a mudhole, it's an operating table and I am the surgeon.
-Batman — Frank Miller

I don't own an ounce of the work I've ever done on 'Batman,' and I still work on 'Batman.' I love the character, I think it's a lot of fun, and it's kind of fun to be in that ballpark every once in a while, where you're seeing a different crowd. — Frank Miller

The Spartans were a paradoxical people. They were the biggest slave owners in Greece. But at the same time, Spartan women had an unusual level of rights. It's a paradox that they were a bunch of people who in many ways were fascist, but they were the bulwark against the fall of democracy. — Frank Miller

It is more raw and unfettered and I'm more likely going into something you could call extreme cartooning. There's a lot of that in the course of 'Holy Terror.' There are interludes where there are pictures - cartoon pictures - of modern figures and they are all wordless. It's up to readers to put the words in. — Frank Miller

We must not remind them that giants walk the Earth. — Frank Miller

Return with the shield or on it — Frank Miller

We're constantly told that all cultures are equal, and that every belief system is as good as the next. And it led to a kind of - and generally, that America was to be known for its flaws rather than its virtues. — Frank Miller

She smells like angels ought to smell, the perfect woman ... the Goddess. Goldie. She says her name is Goldie. — Frank Miller

I will throw all my best efforts into it, my thoughts and political observations, but ultimately I want to create a narrative that keeps you turning the pages and leaves you with a sense that this thing has a reason for being there. — Frank Miller

I'm the goddamn Batman. — Frank Miller

Xerxes: It isn't wise to stand against me, Leonidas. Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory.
King Leonidas: And I would die for any one of mine. — Frank Miller

The most questionable thing I did was make Superman a government agent. If this had been a Superman story, I'd never have done that - and I know that, because I have a Superman story I want to tell someday. In this story, Batman was the hero, so the world was built around him. — Frank Miller

She doesn't quite chop his head off. She makes a Pez dispenser out of him. — Frank Miller

Mighty cultures never - are almost never conquered. They crumble from within. And frankly, I think that a lot of Americans are acting like spoiled brats because everything isn't working out perfectly every time. — Frank Miller

Gotham City. Clean shafts of concrete and snowy rooftops. The work of men who died generations ago. From here, it looks like an achievement. From here, you can't see the enemy. — Frank Miller

I'll stare the bastard in the face as he screams to God, and I'll laugh harder when he whimpers like a baby. And when his eyes go dead, the hell I send him to will seem like heaven after what I've done to him. — Frank Miller

I always knew it would come down to you and the big blue school boy. Planet's too big for the BOTH of you. When it all comes down, I want a piece of him. A small piece, will do? For OLD TIMES, sake, you know..it still hurts when its cold. — Frank Miller

Ladies. Gentlemen. You have eaten well. You've eaten Gotham's wealth. Its spirit. Your feast is nearly over. From this moment on ... none of you are safe. — Frank Miller

We live in the shadow of crime with the unspoken understanding that we are victims.. of fear, of violence, of social impotence. A man has risen to show us that the power is, ans always has been, in our hands. We are under siege. He's showing us that we can resist. — Frank Miller

'Comic book' has come to mean a specific genre, not a story form, in people's minds. So someone will call 'Die Hard' a 'comic-book movie,' when it has nothing to do with comic books. I'd rather have comics be the vehicle by which stories are told. — Frank Miller

In the world of comic books, "troublemaker" means someone who has some sense of dignity. — Frank Miller

Superman punched out Hitler. So did Captain America. That's one of the things they're there for. — Frank Miller

I grew up on the crime stuff. Spillane, Chandler, Jim Thompson, and noir movies like Fuller, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang. When I first showed up in New York to write comics back in the late 1970s, I came with a bunch of crime stories but everybody just wanted men in tights. — Frank Miller

His helmet was stifling, it narrowed his vision. And he must see far. His shield was heavy. It threw him off balance. And his target is far away. — Frank Miller

As a cartoonist, I'm a caricaturist. First you find out what somebody really looks like, and then you find out what they 'really' look like. — Frank Miller

I guess in my own egotistical way I like to create my own library of Batman books that doesn't run contrary to a single thing that has been published before, but it also stands on its own. — Frank Miller

I take his weapons away from him. Both of them. — Frank Miller

Remember, America ... not Wind like a watch, but Wind ... like the air ... — Frank Miller

But I'm not trying to convince anybody how to vote or how to live. Nobody's ever successfully accused me of being realistic. — Frank Miller

Worth dying for. Worth killing for. Worth going to hell for.Amen. — Frank Miller

Working with the kind of talent that I've gotten to work with, like the cast of Sin City, it makes me think probably more fully dimensionally about what is going on behind their eyes. But I draw the way I draw, and ain't nothing gonna change that. Although, I draw Marv and I think, "Boy, I could throw a little Mickey [Rourke] in there." — Frank Miller

You were the one they used against us, Bruce. The one who played it rough. When the noise started from the parents' groups and the sub-committee called us for questioning ... you were the one who laughed ... that scary laugh of yours. "Sure, we're criminals", you said. "We've always been criminals". "We have to be criminals".
Kal-El aka Clark Kent aka Superman — Frank Miller

I prefer to write and draw in the privacy of my home and with total freedom and then take it to the lion's den. — Frank Miller

I requested off this damn night shift four times now. Barbara needs me. Barbara and little James. So I hope it's boy, so what? — Frank Miller