J. J. Abrams Quotes

Everything I've done is an old Marvel comic in its' own way.

I'm not as clever as J.J. Abrams and those guys who fill it with all of these things for people to find.

We're huge fans of 'Game of Thrones' for example, 'Orphan Black.' And even though those shows don't necessarily correlate directly with 'Arrow,' I'm a very big believer that writers are the product of their inspirations.

When you do television, you have this opportunity to drop these subtle hints everywhere. The way you say things, for example, sometimes those seeds turn into trees.

From time to time there is a move to do a little less in the way of period dramas, but people rebel. Audiences say we want them. There is a big hunger for them. I don't think it's sentimentality or nostalgia, it's often that they are simply the best stories.

I think there is a lot of overexplaining both in writing and acting. People don't need to be hit on the head.

Every day, my mom and I would watch a different Judy Garland VHS. I love how she tells a story when she sings. It was just about her voice and the words she was singing - no strings attached or silly hair or costumes, just a woman singing her heart out. I feel like that doesn't happen that much anymore.

I try and let the film do the talking.

My brothers and I grew up in a time where talking, storytelling, telling jokes was sometimes all you had. It wasn't like today, with so many options and portability.

The first book I remember loving was 'Grug and the Big Red Apple.' The first film I saw in the cinema was 'Grease.'

Straightforward fiction functions only as more Bubble Wrap, nostalgia, retreat.

There's a reason Archie didn't go the way of Betty Boop or Davy Crockett or Woody Woodpecker, forgotten relics of a bygone era, and it's because when 'Archie' stories are at their best, anyone of any age can see a little bit of themselves in them.

I spent age 6-12 basically thinking about 'Back to the Future' all the time, so I think it's probably had a pretty huge influence on me and the way I think and write.

One of the things I like so much about 'Goodnight Moon' is the way it leaves room for ambiguity.

I feel, in storytelling, people are so afraid that you won't get it unless you pound them over the head.

For me, true kitsch has nothing to do with irony. It's very honest. It represents what people like, their dreams.

I was an imaginative kid. My sister needed entertaining, whereas I was the one under the table playing with a bit of fluff on the carpet. I was the sort of child who would spend time rolling up balls of all different kinds of fluff and that would be my little family.

I grew up with 'The Little Rascals' and always try to work a link into every one of my movies.

Movies were the biggest influence on me when I was a kid.

I must say, I was a very filmy kid. I used to watch a lot of TV and get very influenced by Bollywood.

I was not a comic book kid.

I think that's what 'Stranger Things' does, it opens you up - it has a real beating heart to it.

I loved Tolkien and I loved 'Star Wars,' which was the first memory that I have being in a movie theater. And, of course, that was the defining movie for me as a kid.

There's a lot of fiction from that period that we're nostalgic for.

Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague.