Steven Moffat Quotes & Sayings

Well, the world is vastly counted in favour of men at every level - except if you live in a civilised country and you're sort of educated and middle-class, because then you're almost certainly junior in your relationship and in a state of permanent, crippled apology. Your preferences are routinely mocked. There's a huge, unfortunate lack of respect for anything male. — Steven Moffat

Do what I do. Hold tight and pretend it's a plan!
- The Doctor, Season 7, Christmas Special — Steven Moffat

Well, I'm permitted to say anything I like. I just don't. — Steven Moffat

The story of Sherlock Holmes, on the surface, is about detection, but in reality, it's about the best of two men who save each other - a lost, washed-up war hero and a man who could end up committing murders instead of solving them. They come together. They become this perfect unit. They become the best friendship ever, and they become heroes. That's what we fall in love with, not Sherlock on his own. No one can love that man on his own, but Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson - the best friends ever. — Steven Moffat

You don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand! You say no! You have the guts to do what's right, even when everyone else just runs away. — Steven Moffat

Writing for adults often means just increasing the swearing - but find an alternative to swearing and you've probably got a better line. — Steven Moffat

All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage. — Steven Moffat

War Doctor: Are you capable of speaking without flapping your hands about?
Eleventh Doctor: Yes.
[Claps his hands together]
Eleventh Doctor: No. — Steven Moffat

So is this how it works Doctor? You never interfere with the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there are children crying? — Steven Moffat

You're guaranteed to be lucky several times in your life-it's what you do with it. Young writers spend all their time worrying, in a way that David Gerrold did not and I did not. How do they get to meet the right people? How do they get to the right parties? If only someone would read my script ... Forget all that. All these things are easy and will happen. The way you get your script to the right people is that you put it in an envelope. It's fucking easy. The difficult bit is writing something that is so good people will take a punt on a brand new writer. That's it-you have to write an absolutely terrific script. — Steven Moffat

Amy: So. Are you proposing to someone? The Doctor: Sorry? Amy: I found this in your pocket. The Doctor: No. No no. That's a memory. Friend of mine. Someone I lost. Would you ... mind. Amy: It's weird. I feel ... I dunno, something. The Doctor: People fall out of the world sometimes but they always leave traces. Little things we can't quite account for. Faces in photographs. Luggage. Half-eaten meals. Rings. Nothing is ever forgotten, not completely. And if something can be remembered it can come back. — Steven Moffat

Think you've seen it all? Think again. Outside those doors, we might see anything. We could find new worlds, terrifying monsters, impossible things. And if you come with me ... nothing will ever be the same again! — Steven Moffat

You'll go out of business if you think people are stupid. — Steven Moffat

The Doctor: It's my nose; it has special powers.
Nancy: Yeah? That why it's so ... ?
The Doctor: What?
Nancy: Nothing.
The Doctor: What?
Nancy: Nothing. Do your ears have special powers too? — Steven Moffat

When you're surrounded by friends and exes, there's a whole lot of stuff that starts crawling out. But however serious and traumatic those experiences may be to the participant, to the onlooker they're hilarious. — Steven Moffat

Eleventh Doctor: [points in the War Doctor's TARDIS] Look ... the round things!
Tenth Doctor: Love the round things.
Eleventh Doctor: What are the round things?
Tenth Doctor: No idea. — Steven Moffat

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly ... time-y wimey ... stuff. — Steven Moffat

I always tend to favor the newer idea. — Steven Moffat

You don't want to take over the universe. You wouldn't know what to do with it beyond shout at it. — Steven Moffat

I think training in comedy, as it were, a history writing comedy, is a powerful tool for anyone. — Steven Moffat

The Doctor: Dr. Song, you've got that face on again.

River: What face?

The Doctor: The 'he's hot when he's clever' face.

River: This is my normal face.

The Doctor: Yes, it is. — Steven Moffat

My priorities are where they should be, which is making really great, really exciting television. — Steven Moffat

Fascinatingly confident, rude people are great. — Steven Moffat

Nothing can ever be a rule in drama, because then you're saying certain things won't ever happen, and that would be very boring. — Steven Moffat

Everything ends and it's always sad, but everything begins again, too. And that's always happy. Be happy. - Return of Doctor Mysterio — Steven Moffat

Amy Pond: 'I thought ... well, I started to think you were just a madman with a box.'
The Doctor: 'Amy Pond, there's something you better understand about me, 'cause it's important and one day your life may depend on it. [He Smiles] I am definitely a madman with a box. — Steven Moffat

River Song: Right then. I have questions, but number one is this - what in the name of sanity have you got on your head?
The Doctor: It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool. — Steven Moffat

See the bowtie? I wear it and I don't care. That's why it's cool. — Steven Moffat

Like most writers, I write about what has happened to me as that involves the minimum amount of research. — Steven Moffat

People don't really have a relationship with great writing or great production or great art direction or great direction. They just sort of admire it. — Steven Moffat

I think of myself as a writer with a sense of humour rather than a comedy writer. Happy to tell a story with lots of jokes in it - I wouldn't know how to do jokes without the story. — Steven Moffat

Rule 1: The Doctor lies. — Steven Moffat

I stole your childhood and now I've led you by the hand to your death. But the worst thing is, I knew. I knew this would happen. This is what always happens. Forget your faith in me. I took you with me because I was vain. Because I wanted to be adored. Look at you. Glorious Pond, the girl who waited for me. I'm not a hero. I really am just a mad man in a box. And it's time we saw each other as we really are. Amy Williams, it's time to stop waiting. — Steven Moffat

I don't want to think that the stories are finite; I want to feel that they can go on forever. — Steven Moffat

I write the kind of stuff I'd like to watch. — Steven Moffat

The Doctor: 'You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine, but you really think they're lying to make you feel better?'
Amelia: 'Yeah ... '
The Doctor: 'Everything's going to be fine. — Steven Moffat

The Doctor: Doctor Song, you've got that face on again.
River: What face?
The Doctor: The "He's hot when he's clever" face.
River: This is my normal face.
The Doctor: Yes it is.
River: Oh, shut up.
The Doctor: Not a chance. — Steven Moffat

Being the only writer on a successful show is very rewarding. — Steven Moffat

Never knowingly be serious. Rule 27. — Steven Moffat

Time travel is always more magical somehow when you go into the past. Traveling into the future is something you do, every day. You're just not going to get very far. So, I rather like the past travel. — Steven Moffat

I hope I won't become hated by geeks everywhere, but I don't really know comic books all that well. — Steven Moffat

Nothing's sad till it's over. Then everything is. — Steven Moffat

Madness is what genius looks like to a small mind — Steven Moffat

We have a plan to top it. And I do think our plan is devastating. We've practically reduced our cast to tears telling them the plan ... we're probably more excited that we've ever been about Sherlock. — Steven Moffat

You have to take your own bold approach, and if you do you will be rewarded with success.
Or calamitous failure. That can happen too. — Steven Moffat

It's a TV show. Only the emotional damage is real. — Steven Moffat

I don't think, generally speaking, people become writers because they were the really good, really cool, attractive kid in class. I'll be honest. This is our revenge for people who were much better looking and more popular than us. I was a bit like that, I suppose. — Steven Moffat

I can say with pride verging on smugness that I've got two very successful shows that assume their audience is very smart. — Steven Moffat

When man invented fire, he didn't say, "Hey, let's cook." He said, "Great, now we can see naked bottoms in the dark. — Steven Moffat

Don't play games with me! You just killed someone I like, that is not a safe place to stand! I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the Universe. Look me up. — Steven Moffat

Demons run when a good man goes to war
Night will fall and drown the sun
When a good man goes to war
Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war
Demons run, but count the cost
The battle's won, but the child is lost — Steven Moffat

Witty and mean is easy - but fond and funny is hard. — Steven Moffat

It's the 50th year of Doctor Who and look what's going on! We're up in the sky and under the sea! We're running round the rings of an alien world and then a haunted house. There's new Cybermen, new Ice Warriors and a never before attempted journey to the centre of the TARDIS. And in the finale, the Doctor's greatest secret will at last be revealed! If this wasn't already our most exciting year it would be anyway! — Steven Moffat

In bed above, we're deep asleep.
While greater love lies further deep.
This dream must end,
The world must know,
We all depend on the beat below. — Steven Moffat

It's been a long time since Sherlock Holmes jumped off that roof - it's time to reveal the truth about what happened between him and the pavement. — Steven Moffat

Rory: Amy. I'm gonna need a little help here.
Amy: Just stop it!
Rory: Just think it through, this will work. This will kill the Angels.
Amy: it will kill you too.
Rory: Will it? River said that this place would be erased from time, never existed. If this place never existed what did I fall off?
Amy: You think you'll just come back to life.
Rory: When don't I?
Amy: Rory -
Rory: Anyway, what else is there? Dying of old age downstairs, never seeing you again? Amy, please. If you love me, then trust me and push.
Amy: I can't.
Rory: You have to!
Amy: Could you? Could you if it was me? Could you do it?
Rory: To save you, I could do anything.
Amy: Prove it.
Rory: But I can't take you too.
Amy: You said we'd come back to life. Money-where-your-mouth-is time.
Rory: Amy, but -
Amy: Shut. Up. Together. Or not at all

-Doctor Who — Steven Moffat

Madame Kovarian: The anger of a good man is not a problem. Good men have too many rules.
The Doctor: Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many. — Steven Moffat

I like naked women. I'm a bloke. I'm supposed to like them. We're born like that. We like naked women as soon as we're pulled out of one ... When man invented fire, he didn't say, "Hey, let's cook." He said, "Great, now we can see naked bottoms in the dark" ... The story of male achievement through the ages, feeble though it may have been, has been the story of our struggle to get a better look at your bottoms. — Steven Moffat

I'll be a story in your head. But that's OK. We're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know; it was the best. — Steven Moffat

The Doctor ... is embarrassingly human for an alien. — Steven Moffat

If you take most men aside when their wives are pregnant, most men are pretty frightened and worried and faintly disgusted by the whole experience. — Steven Moffat

Reinette: One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel. — Steven Moffat

Bow ties are cool. — Steven Moffat

Amy: Up.
Rory: What good's up?
Amy: Better than down.
-Doctor Who — Steven Moffat

The trouble with a series as it gets older is it can feel like a tradition, and tradition is the enemy of suspense, and it's the enemy of comedy. It's the enemy of everything, really. So you have to shake it up. — Steven Moffat

Every episode [in a TV series] is a challenge, and what's challenging in most episodes is the monster. You're always a heartbeat from the monster looking ridiculous. You really have to work so hard to make them not look like ridiculous when they turn up on the set. — Steven Moffat

The Doctor: Just had a fall. All the way down there, right to the library. Heck of a climb back up.
Amelia: You're soaking wet.
The Doctor: I was in the swimming pool.
Amelia: You said you were in the library.
The Doctor: So was the swimming pool. — Steven Moffat

Never ignore a coincidence. Unless you're busy, in which case, always ignore a coincidence. — Steven Moffat

Stories are where memories go when they are forgotten. — Steven Moffat

Even the slash fiction, that's a great way to learn to work. No one really does three-act structure, but just trying to put words that make somebody else turned on, that's going to teach you more about writing than any writing college you can go to. — Steven Moffat

The eyes are not the windows but the doors of the soul. Beware what may enter them. — Steven Moffat

Cinema is so slow and boring compared to television. — Steven Moffat

My problem is that the audience is more fiction-literate than ever. In Shakespeare's day, you probably expected to see a play once or twice in your life; today you experience four or five different kinds of fiction every day. So staying ahead of the audience is impossible. — Steven Moffat

You should always waste time when you don't have any. Time is not the boss of you. Rule 408. — Steven Moffat

The Doctor: [aiming gun at the ceiling] Didn't anyone ever tell you? There's one thing you never put in a trap if you're smart. If you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there's one thing you never, ever put in a trap.
Angel Bob: And what would that be, sir?
The Doctor: Me. [fires] — Steven Moffat

You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful - and then you actually talk with them, and five minutes later they're as dull as a brick. But then there's other people, and you meet them and you think: "Not bad, they're okay," and then you get to know them, and their face sort of becomes them, like their personality's written all over it; and they just - and they turn into something so beautiful. [Simultaneously, with Older Amy] Rory is the most beautiful man I've ever met. — Steven Moffat

I find it's bizarre that science fiction is the one branch of television to push the idea of strong female characters. And I only call it bizarre because strong women aren't fiction. — Steven Moffat

I like that Helen Mirren has been saying the next doctor should be a woman. I would like to go on record and say that the queen should be played by a man. — Steven Moffat

Brainy's the new sexy. — Steven Moffat

The Doctor: Amazing.
Nancy: What is?
The Doctor: 1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it, nothing. Until one tiny, damp little island says "No. No, not here." A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing, the lot of you. I don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me. — Steven Moffat

I can't see what's wrong about assuming intelligence in your audience and what's bad news about being rewarded for assuming that. — Steven Moffat

I absolutely love television, and I don't mean to be vulgar, but as I keep having to explain to people from the movie industry, I get more power and more money doing television, so why on earth would I do a film? — Steven Moffat

Well we've moved through the funfair a bit - we've done the rollercoaster, now we're on the ghost train. — Steven Moffat

If anyone said to me 'invent a new monster so we can sell more toys', I'd kick them out of my office. — Steven Moffat

Always take a banana to a party. — Steven Moffat

If you don't expect to like someone and then you do, that's an incredibly exciting moment. — Steven Moffat

I know this is going to sound very self-serving, and I apologize for it, but if you can write comedy, you can pretty much write anything, because it's the hardest. It's the most technically demanding, the most precisely evaluated form of writing. People know if it works or not. There's a big button marked 'fail,' and that's when nobody laughs. — Steven Moffat

I've finally run out of corridor. There's a life summed up. — Steven Moffat

Angel Bob: Doctor? Excuse me, hello, Doctor? Angel Bob here, sir.
The Doctor: Ah, there you are, Angel Bob. How's life? Sorry, bad subject.
Angel Bob: The Angels are wondering what you hope to achieve.
The Doctor: Achieve? We're not achieving anything. We're just hanging, it's nice in here: consoles; comfy chairs; a forest ... how's things with you?
Angel Bob: The Angels are feasting, sir. Soon we will be able to absorb enough power to consume this vessel, this world, and all the stars and worlds beyond.
The Doctor: Yeah, but we've got comfy chairs. Did I mention?
Angel Bob: We have no need for comfy chairs.
The Doctor: [amused] I made him say 'comfy chairs'. — Steven Moffat

Do you know how you make someone into a Dalek? Subtract Love, add Anger. — Steven Moffat

Between the marriages, I shagged my way round television studios like a mechanical digger. — Steven Moffat

I don't know. I can't tell the future I just work there. — Steven Moffat

The difference between a beautifully made failure and a beautifully made hit is who you've got playing the leads. — Steven Moffat

When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it'll never end. But however hard you try you can't run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever for one moment, accepts it. Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. Not today. Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all. (In the library, the Doctor walks back to the TARDIS. He stops, looking at the doors. Then he raises his hand, and stands there poised like that for a long moment. Finally he snaps his fingers. The doors open. He smiles slowly and walks in, joining Donna. Then he snaps his fingers again, and the doors close. River's voice continues over this.) Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair, and the Doctor comes to call ... everybody lives. — Steven Moffat

Sarah Jane Smith was everybody's hero when I was younger, and as brave and funny and brilliant as people only ever are in stories. But many years later, when I met the real Sarah Jane - Lis Sladen herself - she was exactly as any child ever have wanted her to be. Kind and gentle and clever; and a ferociously talented actress, of course, but in that perfectly English unassuming way. — Steven Moffat

Who takes the Pandorica takes the Universe. But bad news everyone. 'Cause guess who! Hah! Listen, you lot, you're all whizzing about. It's really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I. AM. TALKING! Now, the question of the hour is, who's got the Pandorica? Answer: I do. Next question: Who's coming to take it from me? Come on! Look at me! No plan, no back-up, no weapons worth a damn, oh, and something else. I don't have anything to lose. So if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly little guns and you've got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, just remember who's standing in your way! Remember! Every black day I ever stopped you! And then! And then! Do the smart thing! Let somebody else try first. — Steven Moffat

The Doctor: I've seen bigger.
Clara: Really?
The Doctor: Are you joking? It's massive! — Steven Moffat

The day you lose someone isn't the worst -at least you've got something to do- it's all the days they stay dead. — Steven Moffat

[The Doctor, Capt. Jack and Rose are cornered by the empty children.]
The Doctor: Go to your room! Go to your room! I mean it. I'm very, very angry with you. I'm very, very cross! GO! TO! YOUR! ROOM! [The children lurch away and obey him.] I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words. — Steven Moffat

I was called a misogynist because I was reducing women to mothers. 'Reducing women to mothers' - now there is possibly the most anti-women statement I've heard. — Steven Moffat