Joss Whedon Quotes

If you create a good story that has a lot of story value... I think audiences like that. It's why they stick with the same TV show over and over.

With action films, it's great if it's not just driven by action, but by a good story and interesting characters, as well. Though, there's nothin' like kicking butt!

I have a DVD of 'Lois & Clark,' and I don't know how the special effects hold up, because all the technology's gotten so much better. But the writer - the woman that wrote 'Lois & Clark' - I think those stories were good.

That's how you get surprises, because what movies are all about is surprises.

Our job is to represent the truth of human nature, whether you're playing a tender love story that's set in a coffee shop or whether you're in 'The Avengers,' which is set in a Manhattan which is exploding.

I don't cry at books or movies. Ever. So imagine my shock and awe when I read 'The Time Traveler's Wife' for the second time, and I knew the ending, and I started to cry.

I think what a lot of action movies lose these days, especially the ones that deal with fantasy, is you stop caring at some point because you've lost human scale.

In 'Beowulf,' director Robert Zemeckis uses a technique called 'motion capture' to conjure fantastical things, angles into action and sweeping vistas to stun your eyes and take your breath away. But what he hasn't mastered and what the technique can't do is this: emotion capture.

The action stuff is only good if you get the character stuff in there as well. Sometimes that get lost in amongst all the trying to make stuff blow up.

All good, clean stories are melodrama; it's just the set of devices that determines how you show or hide it.

When I watch a film, I watch it as an audience instead of thinking as an actor or an intellectual. I see whether it made me laugh, get involved or shocked me at certain points. Something has to stir inside me.

The idea behind a dish - the delight and the surprise - makes a difference. Great literature surprises and delights, and provokes us. It isn't just 'Here's the facts - boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.' It's how you tell it.

Don't ever let the other stuff get in the way of your inherent skills as a kick-butt storyteller. Move the reader, make them happy and sad and excited and scared. Make them stare into space after they've put the book down, thinking about the tale that's become a part of them.

What I find frustrating about scripted television is that it's rare that you are surprised by how you feel about the character, or how you feel about the show.

Dramatic shows are the ones that I am attracted to.

We figured the audience would want good stories, great art, wonderful characters, people you could fall in love with that we would immediately put through hell.

Gertrude's Secret' is highly entertaining. Some of the monologues are very funny, some very surprising and some painful.

Wrestling and sports entertainment is not about the moves, it really isn't. It's about being able to evoke emotion in one facet or another.

All I can say is that 'Raw' is an amazing show.

I think it's touching that the fans feel so close to the characters that they feel personally hurt. I've felt that way in plenty of TV shows - 'Game of Thrones,' 'Mad Men.' How could they do that to that character? That's drama.

Good drama must be drastic.

I like a drama. And I think that's the basis of good films, or good plays, is to have a nice drama.

The movie itself was very interesting, but I didn't think it was very good because I didn't really feel different when it was over.

Nowadays, kids know how a programme like Merlin is made and how it works. But the show just seems to grow in popularity the more it goes on.

Some of my favorite movies are just movies that are just good stories, and aren't necessarily big budget movies or anything.