Whedon Quotes & Sayings

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. — Joss Whedon

I'm a very gentle man, not unlike Gandhi. — Joss Whedon

The thing about changing the world ... Once you do it, the world's all different. — Joss Whedon

Angelus: Now that's everything, huh? No weapons ... No friends ... No hope. Take all that away ... and what's left? Buffy: Me. — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

Writers are completely out of touch with reality. Writers are a crazy person. We create conflict - for a living. We do this all the time, sometimes on a weekly basis; we create horrible, incredible circumstances and then figure a way out of them. That's what we do. — Joss Whedon

The English Language is my bitch. Or I don't speak it very well. Whatever. — Joss Whedon

If the apocalypse comes...beep me! — Joss Whedon

I'd rather make a show 100 people need to see, than a show that 1000 people want to see. — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

If I find out I have to write today and nothing else, that's a perfect day. I know a lot of people who are great at it and make it look easy who are tortured and miserable people. Writing for me is perfect peace. — Joss Whedon

Don't go bigger, go deeper. — Joss Whedon

An audience who watches my shows knows who I am, knows that right when they think I'm going to make a joke, I'm going to blow something up, or during the worst peril, I'm going to have someone give someone a kiss - it's just going to happen. — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

I never tire of the heroes that I knew growing up. — Joss Whedon

Why do you write strong female characters?
Because you're still asking me that question. — Joss Whedon

I think everyone who makes movies should be forced to do television. Because you have to finish. You have to get it done, and there are a lot of decisions made just for the sake of making decisions. You do something because it's efficient and because it gets the story told and it connects to the audience. — Joss Whedon

Everything I do in its essence is about helplessness. That's the story I want to tell all the time. It's the story I wanted to live - somebody who appears to be, or is, weak becoming stronger. — Joss Whedon

I'd better go before Kitty tries to act again. — Joss Whedon

People with real power never fear of losing it. People with control think of little else. — Joss Whedon

Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters ... , then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. — Joss Whedon

When people say to me, 'Why are you so good at writing at women?' I say, 'Why isn't everybody?' Obviously there are differences between men and women - that's what makes it all fun. But we're all people. There's a lot of good writers who are very humanist, but still manage to kind of skip fifty-five per cent of the race. And I just don't get that. Not to be able to write an entire gender? To me, the question isn't how do you do it? It's how can you possibly avoid doing it? — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

I think it's always important for academics to study popular culture, even if the thing they are studying is idiotic. If it's successful or made a dent in culture, then it is worthy of study to find out why. — Joss Whedon

If I wrote what I really think, I would be so sad all the time. We create to fill a gap - not just to avoid the idea of dying, it's to fill some particular gap in ourselves. — Joss Whedon

My favorite part of Comic-Con? The groupies. — Joss Whedon

Mercy is the mark of a great man! (stabs defeated opponent) I guess I'm just a good man. (stabs opponent again) Well ... I'm alright. — Jane Espenson

Captain Hammer is obviously the most fun to write because he is not so bright. And 'not so bright' is comedy gold. Not to mention 'kind of a ... ' Captain Hammer's high school was named after him. While he was still attending. — Jed Whedon

Team Inara, commence Operation Joss-Whedon-Is-A-God. — John Ringo

I'm not a control freak - I'm a control enthusiast. — Joss Whedon

But if you, as an independent filmmaker or a 'serious' filmmaker, think you put more love into your characters than the Russo Brothers do Captain America, or Joss Whedon does the Hulk, or I do a talking raccoon, you are simply mistaken. — James Gunn

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. — Joss Whedon

To read makes our speaking English good. — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

We don't need heroes so much as recognizing ourselves as heroes. — Joss Whedon

The problem is I want to do everything. I really love all of it, and I love every aspect of movie-making and storytelling, and I love television, I love the Internet. I wish I had time to do absolutely everything. — Joss Whedon

This is, in fact, the biggest show that Marvel television has ever taken on, in the animation world. We had a real challenge that was posed to us, and that was this little, tiny art-house movie that came out last year, that I don't know if you saw, called Marvel's The Avengers, written and directed by our friend Joss Whedon, and it really set the template. — Jeph Loeb

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. — Joss Whedon

Lies. The great human weapon. Pathetic.
I'd say "pathetic" would be falling for them. Especially Kitty's. — Joss Whedon

You learn something every time you make a mistake. — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

Because it's no longer enough to be a decent person. It's no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself. — Joss Whedon

I myself have never enjoyed anything more than writing. I love to live in that world. — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

I write to be the characters that I am not. — Joss Whedon

I'm a very hard-line, angry atheist. Yet I am fascinated by the concept of devotion. — Joss Whedon

I'm working on Buffy: Deep Space Nine . It will be dark and badly received. — Joss Whedon

Going forward, I would love to work with directors like Rian Johnson and Joss Whedon; people like that who are doing big films but do have really independent voices. That's kind of what I want to focus on, is always working with people with at least an independent point of view, even if it's not an independent film. — Mary Elizabeth Winstead

I'm not big on regret. It's not on my schedule. — Joss Whedon

River Tam (Summer Glau): No power in the 'verse can stop me. — Joss Whedon

I still believe that even though 'The Empire Strikes Back' is better in innumerable ways than 'Star Wars,' 'Star Wars' wins. — Joss Whedon

Who is to say who is the villain and who is the hero? Probably the dictionary. — Joss Whedon

Limitations are something that I latch onto - like working in genre, or if you're writing TV, there are act breaks, there's a length of time it's supposed to be. The restrictions of budget and sets can be really useful. When you can have everything, it's very hard to make things feel real and lived in. — Joss Whedon

I wish more people would take the extraordinary talent they have and just let their id go because that's what we discovered. We discovered that the sillier we got, the more people believed that we were speaking from our hearts. — Joss Whedon

Good fantasy fiction: ... explores real human conditions through fantastic metaphors which universalize the characters' individual experiences to speak personally to us all. — Laura Resnick

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! — Joss Whedon

For me, the act of telling the story and showing it to somebody is almost gravy. — Joss Whedon

This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people ... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave. — Joss Whedon

We had the camera locked, but not the location of the sun. — Joss Whedon

Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing. — Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon said to me, 'If you think you are taking over the show, you have got another think coming.' He said, 'You are here only because I don't want to kill a villain off every week. I want my villains to be more interesting and multifaceted and then die.' — James Marsters

Someone else's loss is my chocolatey goodness — Joss Whedon

But what clicked with Joss most of all was that Greenwalt was able to balance his edginess with an old-school approach to narrative. It was Greenwalt, Joss says, who was "constantly pulling us back to 'But do we care about Buffy? But is Buffy in trouble?'" "We learned early on when we started writing that we've got to have the metaphor," Greenwalt explains. After all, a storyline that's just about a cool monster every week would quickly get old and predictable. "You've got to have the Buffy of it - what does it mean? — Amy Pascale

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. — Joss Whedon

Veronica solves little puzzles because she, like all of us, cannot unravel the bigger ones. — Joss Whedon

That wouldn't be a first, now would it?"
"Jean."
"Jean Grey is dead, Agent."
"Yeah, that'll last. — Joss Whedon

Xander, don't speak Latin in front of the books. — Joss Whedon

Come a day there won't be room for naughty men like us to slip about at all. This job goes south, there well may not be another. So here is us, on the raggedy edge. Don't push me, and I won't push you. Dong le ma? — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon and all the writers of 'Iron Man' and 'Thor' found a way to keep Coulson saying something that keeps you guessing. I'm really lucky because a lot of people play agents and don't get nearly as much fun stuff to do. — Clark Gregg

One of my favourite sorts of actors ... the rat actor. The rat actor knows his job and gets it done. — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

Casting is storytelling. — Joss Whedon

I'll always protect what I'm working on. Which is why more and more of it is stuff only I can ruin. — Joss Whedon

I could not conceive that [fans] actually wanted me to sign something. It took a long time for me to figure out (a) just say 'Thank you' and sign the thing, and (b) smile in the picture, because if you try to just half-smile you're going to look constipated. — Joss Whedon

When I say, 'I love you,' it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a person. — Joss Whedon

If you try to multitask in the classic sense of doing two things at once, what you end up doing is quasi-tasking. It's like being with children. You have to give it your full attention for however much time you have, and then you have to give something else your full attention. — Joss Whedon

People want the tragedy. They need things to go wrong, they need the tension. In my characters there's a core of trust and love that I'm very committed to. These guys would die for each other, and it's very beautiful. But at the same time, you can't keep that safety. Things have to go wrong, bad things have to happen. — Joss Whedon

There's a lot of anger in the Twitter-verse, as I've discovered. But there's a lot of love. — Joss Whedon

I am not made of steel. Rage. I...am made... of RAGE!!!! — Joss Whedon

Lockheed! You found me! You are the best X-Dragon ever. — Joss Whedon

You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are. — Joss Whedon

Recognizing power in another does not diminish your own. — Joss Whedon

Those of us who write spend our entire lives in an endless English class. — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

They can take everything away from me, but they can never take my pride, unless I somehow get some. — Joss Whedon

In the time of gods and monsters, what is the worth of a man? — Joss Whedon

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. — Joss Whedon

When I was backstage at Comic-Con, about to go out and do the panel for Thor, and Joss Whedon ran up and introduced himself, I already almost passed out, right then. And then, he said, "I've been meaning to call you. You have a big part in The Avengers. Can we introduce you as part of the cast?" It was pretty Make-A-Wish Foundation. I was pretty sure I was dying and nobody had told me yet. — Clark Gregg

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. — Joss Whedon

I was a little bit ashamed of American TV because I thought, 'None of the shows my father works on are as funny as my father.' — Joss Whedon

What about me? I love you so much. And I tried to make you go away. I killed you and it didn't help. And I hate it! I hate that it's so hard and that you can hurt me so much. I know everything that you did, because you did it to me. Oh, God! I wish that I wished you dead. I don't. I can't. Strong is fighting! It's hard, and it's painful, and it's every day. It's what we have to do. And we can do it together. But if you're too much of a coward for that, then burn. If I can't convince you that you belong in this world, then I don't know what can. But do not expect me to watch. And don't expect me to mourn for you, because ... — Joss Whedon

You know, 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. — Joss Whedon

Why are you so surprised? Joss Whedon is a god. I never would have made it through med school without Netflix and Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
"Buffy?" Wren said the name like she was talking about one of her best friends. "All six seasons? — Stephanie Fournet

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. — Joss Whedon

I'm the least confident person in so many ways. But I believed that if somebody gave me the chance to tell a story, I would tell a story [well enough] that the person who gave me the chance would get their money back. — Joss Whedon

I love a good romantic comedy. — Joss Whedon

I don't know a lot of show runners. I mean I met a lot of them in picket lines. I'm not part of a, like, secret society or pickup basketball game. As far as I'm concerned, pick-up basketball games are secret societies. They confuse me. I've never been a networker or I've never been very social. — Joss Whedon