Quotes from Joss Whedon

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.

What I do like is hiking. And that's what filmmaking is. It's a hike. It's challenging and exhausting, and you don't know what the terrain is going to be or necessarily even which direction you're going in... but it sure is beautiful.

I write to give myself strength.

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.

War is not just the business of death, it is the antitheses of life.

Live all of your life. Understand it, see it, appreciate it. And have fun.

I have had a dream my whole life... and it was not this good.

You know what? I was wrong. You are an idiot. My life happens to, on occasion, suck beyond the telling of it. Sometimes more than I can handle.

Something like 'Much Ado' happens, and even 'Avengers' happens because of the years of building connections and doing the work and proving yourself.

Personally, the NSA collecting data on me freaks me out. It totally freaks me out. And yet I'm from the generation that wants to put a GPS in their kids so I always know where they are.

That's the great thing about 'The West Wing:' you really felt like you were in the thick of it.

I am not a fan of referencing your own work when it's in a different universe than what you're doing. That, to me, is a wink at the audience, and winking isn't actually cool when you're not, like, 10.

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.

I think to an extent every human being needs to be redeemed somewhat or at least needs to look at themselves and say, 'I've made mistakes, I'm off course, I need to change.' Which is probably the hardest thing for a human being to do, and maybe that's why it interests me so.

I did my English A level in England, and we studied Shakespeare. I had great, great high school teachers, and we parsed the text within an inch of its life.

My life has included a study of Shakespeare and to me it's very natural, but I know that it's not always accessible to other people.

I mean, I knew I wasn't a nice person, but what did I do in my past life to deserve this? I must have hit a bus full of nuns while driving a stolen car on my way to selling drugs to schoolchildren!

I used to write chronologically when I started, from beginning to end. Eventually I went, 'That's absurd; my heart is in this one scene, therefore I must follow it.'

I never give up on anything, because you come back around, and suddenly the thing you thought you'd never do is relevant.

When you're making a film, you have an obligation to fill the frame with life.

I've been to two festivals in my life, and I've never been to Toronto. I haven't really been making festival movies. This is new territory for me.

Life's a show and we all play a part And when the music starts We open up our hearts

I wanted to drag Shakespeare from obscurity. I've been a fan my whole life.

I would like to have as much going on as other people do, but my problem is I get so attached to things, and there's my kids, and I need my sleep, and then there's being married - gotta check in on that, too.