Raphael Bob-Waksberg Quotes

In the novels I most admire, there is this sense that, within the confines of the world, the possibilities are always opening in new and surprising ways - that was a quality I strived to capture, with the hope that the reader would be willing to follow me.

As an actor, our very palette is one of imagination. So it is a walk onto an empty space and then imagine the world beyond it is what we do.

For me as a storyteller, I want to follow the characters and the story through what they organically demand.

The opportunity to create a small world between two pieces of cardboard, where time exists yet stands still, where people talk and I tell them what to say, is exciting and rewarding.

With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that the books have a life of their own, quite apart from me.

Fiction writing is great. You can make up almost anything.

You set up the story, but the characters start talking, and they go places that you didn't expect. You have to follow.

Being a fiction writer makes you someone who works with irresponsibility.

The things that I'm interested in directing are fiction, because then you're not married to a particular reality.

When you do fiction, it is your imagination you have put out there.

It's a very different thing when you're creating the world as opposed to when you're just part of the world. I love the detail of it, the problem-solving of it, and I love working with actors.

The wonder, especially about the 'New Mutants' is, they're all kids. They're all growing. They're changing, literally, from page to page in terms of character and approach, past, present, and future. As a writer, that's the most delicious thing to play with.

I hope I can be a filmmaker where every movie will be different, and not make one type of movie. I'm always looking for a character that interests me.

As a writer of fiction, lying is the central thing to all books.

After I finished 'The Darkest Minds' series, I knew I wanted to take a risk and work on something completely different - lighter in tone, with a little bit more romance, and a completely different set of characters - that would also, um, finally justify my liberal arts degree.

For as long as I can remember, I was always creating random characters.

What I'm interested in as an actor is exploring universes that I have not come across before. It's interesting to me to be able to discover new things. I do like fantasies, and I like when film is inspiring and it puts creative ideas into the minds of the audience.

For any artistic person who creates imaginary people, the art is like inhabiting the life and mind of a seven-year-old child with imaginary friends and imaginary events and imaginary grace and imaginary tragedy. Within that alternate universe, the characters do have quite a bit of free will. I know it's happening in my mind and my mind alone, but they seem to have their own ability to shape their destinies. So I'm not shooting for anything. If the characters are vulnerable it's simply because they're very human.

I enjoy both acting and screenwriting, in completely different ways. You have more creative freedom with writing because you can create everything that happens. But, as an actor you also have creative freedom because you don't so much focus on what has to move the story along, and only on how your character is reacting to situations.

All novels are experimental.

Your film is like your children. You might want a child with certain qualities, but you are never going to get the exact specification right. The film has a privilege to live its own life and develop its own character. To suppress this is dangerous. It is an approach that works the other way too: sometimes the footage has amazing qualities that you did not expect.

You have to write the book that wants to be written.

I'm not trying to convey a message, I'm just trying to tell a story.

A comic book is the opposite of a cartoon. In a cartoon, you want to simplify the idea, so when they look at it at a glance, they get it. Boom. Simple. Direct to the point. But when you're drawing Groo, now it's a narrative, a story. You want the viewer to get involved in the story. You want him to feel like he's in the town to follow your main character. So I love to add lots and lots of things in it. Things that people will enjoy going back to and say, "Oh yeah, that's how a market must have looked in this fantasy world, with people selling meat here and dishes here."

I think what's fun of making a Transformers movie is that it gets to be all of the above. I think, thematically, this movie is ... because of the third movie, you can ask questions in this movie you couldn't ask in the previous films. Like I was referring to the fact that they were abandoned by humans in the previous film; their attitude is different, so we've been able to tackle different themes.