Joss Whedon Quotes

Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead.

Everything is so fragile. There's so much conflict, so much pain... You keep waiting for the dust to settle and then you realize this is it; the dust is your life going on. If happy comes along - that weird, unbearable delight that's actual happy - I think you have to grab it while you can. You take what you can get, 'cause it's here, and then... gone.

Stay crunchy, even in milk.

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.

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.

TV's like whitewater rafting: Without rocks, there wouldn't be rapids, and it wouldn't be as much fun.

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.

The hardest thing in this world, is to live in it.

That girl will rain destruction down on you and your ship. She is an albatross, Captain. Way I remember it, albatross was a ship's good luck, 'til some idiot killed it. [to Inara] Yes, I've read a poem. Try not to faint.

I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar!

Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.

In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.

Passion... it lies in all of us. Sleeping, waiting, and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir, open its jaws, and howl. It speaks to us, guides us... passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have?

There was a time before I felt I was a real writer, when I was a yarn spinner and I just wanted to tell story until it was over. But then there came a time where I was like, 'No, I want to understand something through writing this that I might have not understood before. I want people to come away with something to think about.'

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 woman.

Faith in God means believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers.

If I kill you, you'll be awake, you'll be facing me, and you'll be armed.

Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a-a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and-and-and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a... it, uh, it has no-no texture, no-no context. It's-it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then-then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible. It should be, um, smelly.

I was not popular in school, and I was definitely not a ladies' man. And I had a very painful adolescence, because it was all very strange to me. It wasn't like I got beat up, but the humiliation and isolation, and the existential 'God, I exist, and nobody cares' of being a teenager were extremely pronounced for me.

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.

Peace comes from the acceptance of the part of you that can never be at peace.

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

People feel removed from sexism. 'I'm not a sexist, but I'm not a feminist.' They think there's this fuzzy middle ground. There's no fuzzy middle ground. You either believe that women are people or you don't. It's that simple.

Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.

The misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it.

Very occasionally, if you pay really close attention, life doesn't suck.

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

I really love `Serenity.' I'm really proud of it and excited to see it my guys on the big screen, bringing something new to it. But `Firefly' was a different animal, something I will regret losing until the day they put me in a box, because I did have a lot of good stories I wanted to tell.

Let's put it this way: If a raccoon can carry a movie, then they believe maybe even a woman can.

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.

I'm very much of the "make it dark, make it grim, make it tough", but then, for the love of God, tell a joke.

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.

"Angel, when I look into the future, all I see is you! All I want is you." "I know the feeling."

There’s a fine line between support and stalking and let’s all stay on the right side of that.

Whatever makes you weird is probably your greatest asset.

I loved the idea of a girl going into a dark alley, and a monster comes, and then she just aces him. It’s like, you want to see the tiny person suddenly take control. God, my whole career is basically about that!

Half of writing history is hiding the truth.

People only respond to fear.

The goal is always about the next story. It's always about the thing I haven't done before. It's about learning, or it's about becoming better, and it's about whatever story grabs hold of me.

We are, all of us, incoherent text, and just knowing that - knowing that no matter how much you say, 'I am this' and part of you is not that - means that you can say it.

If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would've been like Woodstock.

I tend to tell stories that have a lot of momentum; it's not like 'and then months later...' I like things where the momentum of one action rolls into the next one so everything is the sum of that.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy.

I write for fanboy moments. 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. I write to do all the things the viewers want too. So the intensity of the fan response is enormously gratifying. It means I hit a nerve.

Recognizing power in another does not diminish your own.

Writers are completely out of touch with reality. Writers are crazy [people]. 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.

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

Every vampire fiction reinvents vampires to its own needs. You take what you want.

I don't want the giant ego. I don't want to become Kevin Costner, singing on the soundtrack to The Postman.

Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women.