Quotes from Paul Dini

To some degree, I don't think 'Batman' works in a completely modern city; I think Gotham has be reflective of his personality and those of his enemies.

You have to be kind to yourself to survive in the world.

I think that when you've got a world in which it's plausible to have a guy dressed as a giant bat and fight evil clowns and other nightmarish freaks, I think the world has to be visually a little more arresting than a regular world.

For years, humorous characters in cartoons have been almost exclusively male.

I take inspirations from newspaper strip cartoonists who look for ways of expanding their characters' worlds once they have established the initial concept of their strips.

You have to remember, when someone hurts you, that you are so much more than what they took from you.

I remember when I saw 'The Dark Knight' movie, and I was sitting there watching it, and there actually came one or two places where I had trouble divorcing myself from the reality of the locations because it was filmed in Chicago, and I know that city quite well.

It's a lot of fun to identify with a character who lives by their own rules.

I've always felt in my own small, little way that if I could just write a story where it works out well, where the scales of justice are balanced, then that's something that I do really love to see in the world.

I have a great fondness for any character I work on. Whether it's somebody like Batman or Harley Quinn or whatever character I'm writing, I just really enjoy the heck out of it, and I try to do the best job I can with it.

With 'Tower Prep,' Cartoon Network wanted to go into a new area where no other kids' programming was going. There were a lot of kids' sitcoms on the air, but they wanted to really go with more of like an adventure/drama feel.

Encourage your kids to be creative. When you see them tracing a character from TV or a comic, say something like, 'That's nice. Now how about you create a character yourself?' Keep kids curious and excited about creating.

Quite often in comic book movies, very good actresses are relegated to being the girlfriend or the helper or the sidekick or something.

If you let tragedies stop you along the way, then you're never going to grow as a person.

As much fun as it is gaming, I have so much to do that I've had to get away from them. I still enjoy them. When I go to a friend's house and they have a game on, I'll happily join in and play.

I wouldn't call the Joker exactly easy to write.

My story is just my story, and it's not nearly as traumatic as some.

The old Rankin-Bass animated specials seemed to exist in a loosely shared reality, which is what attracted me to them. Santa, Snow Miser, Rudolph, Frosty, even the Easter Bunny seemed to be on nodding acquaintance with each other, even if only in cameo appearances in each other's cartoons.

I was working in cartoons. I could go to Comic-Con, buy the Hal Jordan ring, I could buy animation cels, but at the end of the day, I come back to an empty apartment. I had a life that was only around me, and when I was broken, my world was broken.

In 'Batman Beyond,' Terry McGinnis has the responsibility of protecting Gotham City, as well as maintaining a home and social life. He's also got a single mom and a pesky younger brother, which young kids will relate to.

If your child has something creative they really want to do, it's up to you, their parent, to help make that happen.

To overcome any form of adversity, to not give up, to not give up on yourself, your dreams, to not sequester yourself away from people - that's the most important thing to do with your life.

In those times when a kid first tries to express themselves creatively, it sets them on a different path. Sometimes, that path can be really wonderful and can lead to a career doing some of the things you love. I also think that the price on that is a certain amount of alienation or distance created between a lot of the people around you.

I have played games like Angry Birds and, you know, Plants vs. Zombies and things like that just for fun on the phone and everything.