Top 106 Quotes & Sayings by Julie Plec

I talk all the time about how much I read growing up and how much I love Stephen King and how he impacted my work from a genre perspective, but Pat Conroy wrote some of the most magnificent stories about characters who had to deal with dysfunctional families and try to find a place of honor in their own world and the pain of loss.

'The Vampire Diaries' is a serialized drama. It deserved its final chapter.

I think Joss Whedon is a genius.

An actor's only perception is of their character, and they're looking at one piece. A writer is looking at the entire story. They're going to see things that the writer didn't see because they're only looking through their lens.

Kevin Williamson and I wrote a show about loss and grief that just so happened to have vampires in it.

I think, make it as beautiful as you can, and then rip it away. That's my sadistic thought as a storyteller.

I learned that getting a movie made in Hollywood is a near impossibility, and the process can be a wild adventure. TV is a lot more consistently productive - no offense to the beautiful world of feature film.

Showrunning is an arrogant job. You have to be arrogant and hold yourself strong in order for people to hear you. Confidence partners with arrogance. The only person you have to trust is yourself. The only instinct you can trust is your own.

I look at 'Friday Night Lights' as one of my all-time favorite series finales, and that is what you want. After all the roads you've traveled with these people, you just want to know that they're going to be happy. I'm a big believer in shows that make that choice.

I wanted people to talk about the finale of 'The Vampire Diaries' as one of their favorites, which is a lofty ambition, but it certainly drove me hard creatively to make sure that we had put as much thought and love into it as we possibly could.

We have a rule: if you're killing off a series regular, you have to tell them first. If you're killing off a person temporarily, you have to warn them before the script comes out.

I don't pray. I'm not a deeply religious person.

I realized that I get pleasure when I'm told, 'Don't listen to the haters; they're losers in their moms' basements.' I imagine these 'losers' and feel better about myself. Their insults hurt less if I label them 'pathetic.' I diminish their value in order to protect mine. I noticed that I'm quick to make a joke at someone else's expense.

I'm not a morning person, and yet production is a morning person's game.

There is no definitive end to anybody's story when you're dealing with the fluidity of chemistry, because when it gets stale, you want out.

'Ghost World' was such an incredibly difficult episode to find the right tone for. I remember at the time it was very divisive because some people hated it - they thought it was cheesy and hokey - and I loved it. When I saw it, I cried my head off, and I was so happy.

When you're telling taut, tight storytelling that has any kind of built-in plot twist elements, you tend to want to stack everything up on top of itself as opposed to letting things breathe and be languid in terms of the passage of time.

The whole reason I like these virus movies is because I read 'The Stand' when I was in junior high and thought it was the greatest book I'd ever read.

Write something good that the people like.

I wanted to work in Hollywood. I was captivated by it. I read 'Premiere Magazine' and 'Movieline Magazine' and 'Us' before it was a weekly magazine.

Because I was such a student of pop culture growing up, I love that on the list of things that I got to work on in my first years out of college were 'Scream' and 'Dawson's Creek' and, ultimately now, 'The Vampire Diaries,' which generations below me grew up on and can quote. I love that. I think that is the coolest thing in the world.

I thought, 'Oh, I'll be an independent producer. Oh, I'll be a manager.' I was going through all those things in my head, and one night, late at night, I was having what I would now describe as probably a panic attack because there were so many unknowns. An almost literal voice came into my head telling me, 'You need to write.'

Daily, I visualize the smart-ass troll who lives deep in my subconscious, and I pelt him with rainbows and unicorns. I fight a battle against my judgmental thoughts. And when an opportunity arises to gain acceptance or popularity at the expense of someone else, I zip it. It's not easy.

I feel like Caroline Forbes is such a crucial element... on 'The Vampire Diaries.'

I've learned that I've just barely scratched the surface of knowledge of the profession, and I have deep envy of and appreciation for filmmakers who really, truly understand the physics, the design of filmmaking. They can do story and color and composition and geometry and math and science all at once.

You can love and hate your family with equal measure, but the power of the bond you have to have with them, you can't really ever walk away.

Of every movie that I've seen multiple times, of every TV show that I was obsessed with, I don't think I was ever obsessed with anything more than 'Flowers in the Attic,' which I read 13 times between fourth grade and senior year.

'Scream' was the first thing he'd ever written that had gotten made, and I'd been in Hollywood for less than two years.

I learned more about who I am and how to be a great worker - and a great artistic worker - from doing student theater. I was a stage manager. I was an assistant stage manager. I was on the running crew. I did probably 25 shows at Northwestern - all musicals, of course.

If the day-to-day culture is saying it's OK to not be inclusive or tolerant, that it's OK to be bigoted, then it's your responsibility to double down and make it OK in storytelling to be inclusive and tolerant.

'The Reckoning' is one of my proudest hours. I love that episode so much.

The intensity of the story breaking on 'Vampire' has never been easy. Every week, you're starting with a blank board and trying to make a new movie. There's no formula; there's no franchise to hang your hat on.

To me, TV relationships work at their best when there is a deep longing and feelings and interest and sexual attraction that is unrequitable.

If I walk into the editing room, it's six hours lost. I'm massaging frames. I'm, like, 'Oh, take six frames off that shot. Hit the music cue right there.' I will drive everybody crazy if left to my own devices in that room. So I try to do everything I can by staying out of the way.

The way that 'Vampire' was born was over a lunch. We got asked to do the show. A week later, we were hired. A week later, we were writing it. The minute we handed it in, it was ordered. The minute we shot it, it was picked up. Then we started working. There was never any, like, 'OK, here's what this show is...' We had to figure it out as we went.

I think the model of The CW Network is really built on the fan platform more than anything else. The success or longevity of a series has less to do with the number it's pulling and more to do with the social footprint... There is a lot about the fan support on a strictly business level that's really powerful for that network.

I love real women that don't have to be saints, who can be selfish and act out against their parents or like the wrong guy, because that's life. That's my life, at least.

The vampire is the new James Dean.

TV writing - for me, at least - is half original voice and half an embodiment and a representation of the spirit of the actors you're writing for.

Hollywood, Twitter, our friends - they all contribute to a community of snark. The more we engage in the way that everyone else engages, the more followers, likes, and RTs we get. But we can't rail against the cyberbullies without acknowledging what we also contribute to a culture of cruelty.

I suffer mightily at the 7 A.M. calls. I'm happy as a clam on the 7 P.M. calls.

There are a lot of things you do in a supernatural universe that can toe the line and cross the line.

I can stay up until the sun's up, no problem, but I do not like getting up in the morning.

In junior high, when we got our first VCR, I used to tape four soaps a day. I was a diehard 'General Hospital' fan from when I was nine to 25.

There's something about a supernatural universe that you would think would actually make it easier to create tension and build conflict and have big scares and big ideas and big sequences. And that's true in a lot of ways. You can pick the best idea out of a hat.

I always talk about Meredith and Derrick from 'Grey's Anatomy,' and I loved them the most when they sort of opened and closed each episode with them in bed, happy with each other, and you didn't need to insert extra conflict into them, because there was plenty of conflict in the show. So they were this port in the storm of conflict.

I work very hard so that I can be present all the time for what I do and then carve out little pockets of time as I desire for my personal life.

When you're dealing with long-distance relationships, it's a relationship played out over technology. When you're in high school, it's because you're not supposed to act on those impulses yet. So some of my favorite relationships in drama are based in people that can't really be together.

There's a lot of storylines over the years where you feel like it's maybe meant to be more important than it ends up being, and that's because we jump ship, and you gracefully extricate yourself from that as well as you can.

I read 'Tiger Beat' and 'Bop' from the time I was 9, 10, 11 years old. I loved movies. I saw 'E.T.' seven times. I used to yell at people who called me when 'L.A. Law' was on because they should know better. So I just have been so in love with the business of Hollywood since I can remember.

I call it 'The Breakfast Club' philosophy. There's something about being trapped in a dire situation with a group of people that you would never normally be trapped with.

As you live your life and accumulate friends, both IRL and on social media, ask yourself, are you a bully too?

The problem with ratings is that you can give yourself a million reasons why they are what they are.

Every night, I will write until I'm done. Until my eyes are burning and tearing, and I can't see the computer screen anymore, till I finish the script, till I get to the point where I'm happy stopping, till I get everything off my plate, because I hate going to bed with a full plate. It makes me very neurotic.

As a fan, I hated most of 'The Day After Tomorrow' movie except for the part where Emmy Rossum and Jake Gyllenhaal were stuck in the library, and I thought, 'Oh, I like this now.' There's something about bringing people together in odd circumstances and exploring the petri dish of what happens.

I grew up as an avid reader. I would go to the library and check out 40 books a week. Some of them were smarty books; most of them were 'Sweet Valley High' and young teen romance.

When you have an ensemble where characters pair off so easily, it becomes extremely isolating in the story world. You can end up with two actors who have not seen each other face to face all season long.

I think that when you're exploring themes of humanity and what defines a hero and what makes us our best self and what makes us our worst self, you're going to stumble into territories of societal issues and that kind of thing. Sometimes you have accidents where you're not trying, but then the opportunity just presents itself. and you lean into it.

A long-running show leaves behind a legacy of storytellers and their relationship with the audience.

It doesn't matter if these characters are supposed to be together forever: if their chemistry gets stale, you want somebody to die, you want to put somebody in a coma, you want to write them off the show - anything to save you.