Quotes from J. Michael Straczynski

Art is progressive; the more you do it, the better you get. I defy anyone to write fifteen short stories and not have story #15 be at least marginally better than story #1. It's simply not possible. Setting a date-certain for surrender often results in giving up just as you're starting to get good at your craft.

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree by the river of truth, and tell the whole world 'No, You Move'.

Take care, don't fight, and remember, if you do not choose to lead, you will forever be led by others. Find what scares you and do it. And you can make a difference, if you choose to do so.

We're more RESILIENT. Takes a LOT to destroy a human spirit.

Never let them stop you from telling the story you want to tell.

Whatever our history, whatever the root of our surnames, we remain a good and decent people, and we do not bow down and we do not give up. The fire of the human spirit cannot be quenched by bomb blasts or body counts. Cannot be intimidated forever into silence or drowned by tears. We have endured worse before. We will bear this burden and all that come hereafter because that's what ordinary men and women do. No matter what. This has not made us weaker. It has only made us stronger.

I have to move fast, if I hesitate even a second longer, I'll lose focus and be trapped forever in this... this... toilet!

Instead, someone decided to create little moments of beauty to do the simplest, smallest job in the world, because why shouldn't that be beautiful?

Writers write because they have stories they need desperately to tell, and things they need just as vitally to say. It's not something where you have to go out and find an idea to write about, they're begging to be written. If you have nothing to say, and no story to tell...and I'm not being harsh, just honest...you're probably not a writer.

Dead people are infinities of maybes.

writing is as much a state of mind as it is a profession

Even as I think these words for the first time, the me who is my future self is remembering me thinking these words for the first time.

Life was meant to be lived full measure, flat out, pedal to the metal

Vocês são todos uma e a mesma espécie, têm os mesmos objectivos, os mesmos sonhos, os mesmos medos... Comem a mesma comida, dormem o mesmo sono... Por isso vão contra a vossa natureza quando se dividem para tornar mais fácil matarem-se uns aos outros. Países, bairros, credos, nomes, partidos, clube. Vocês matam-se uns aos outros por um par de ténis.

But the shelf life of that status quo was expiring fast.

If you hold fast to what's true and right and just, things work out.

Doesn't matter what planet they come from, men are so freaking dense.

We are all the sum of our tears. Too little and the ground is not fertile, and nothing can grow there. Too much and the best of us is washed away.

The answer, of course, was that the stories had been written as well as could be expected given the tools I had when I wrote them. Every writer starts with the same toolbox, which at most might contain a screwdriver and a pair of rusty pliers, and there's not much you can make with that. Each finished story adds a new tool to the box that assists in the construction of better stories going forward, and reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the prior work.

It's easy to find something worth dying for. Do you have anything worth living for?

Let's go!' Peter yelled and ran off, his voice echoing through the mall. 'Last one to strike out at our imperialist oppressors is a Trotskyite stooge!' Some people stay in college way too long.

The last time it switched the font to Comic Sans, and if that sticks I'm killing myself right here, right now.

That settled it. We were definitely at the stoned part of the conversation.

Many of these books were quite good, most were middle-of-the-road, and a few brought to mind a review by Dorothy Parker, in which she stated, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.