Top 222 Quotes & Sayings by Stan Lee - Page 3

If I got a superpower I wouldn't say, oh, I got to get a costume and put on a mask. I would say hey, I can do something better than other people. How can I turn it into a buck?

I'm not a guy who gets inspirations.

I don't know where the hell I'll be in 5 years. Maybe I'll be producing movies maybe I'll be on a corner selling apples. I don't know, but I'm having a hell of a lot of fun.

Comming from your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man

The purpose of this is not show that I can do it better, because I think Superman is perfect. The original creation of Superman nobody could have done that better and I think Batman is pretty much a perfect character... The same with all of them. I'm just going to try to find a way to say, "If that wasn't the original idea, what would be another way to do it that would be more in my style?".

I never understood why people take drugs. They're habit forming and they can kill you. I didn't need anything to pep me up or make me feel more creative, and I didn't need them to help me with women.

Of what import are brief, nameless lives . . . to Galactus?

Everything has changed and we're all living in one city now. What happens somewhere affects things everywhere, so I have to be careful and whatever stories I work on, I want them to have redeeming moral values.

The public always loves anything that's different, as long as it's well-made, if it's well-done. You never know what to expect when you go to one of these so-called superhero movies.

... And we talk it out. Lately, I've had Roy Thomas come in, and he sits and makes notes while we discuss it. Then he types them up, which gives us a written synopsis. Originally - I have a little tape recorder - I had tried taping it, but then I found no one on staff has time to listen to the tape again later. But this way he makes notes, types it quickly, I get a carbon, the artist gets a carbon ... so we don't have to worry that we'll forget what we've said.

I do know that people enjoy reading a comic book and saving it and collecting the comics. And sharing them and trading them with friends. That may be something you can't do as easily with digital comics.

I enjoyed reading Batman, and Superman, and all the super ones, but I never wished I created them. I've got to let there be some work for other people!

Usually, the biggest hang-up is the script. You could have a script done in six months that you love, or it could be like The Fantastic Four it's been almost 10 years.

I don't wake up in the morning and say, wow I've got a great idea for a story. But I sit down, and I figure well, let's see.

It's hard not to be enthusiastic when you like what you're doing and I love what I do. I love writing stories, I love coming up with ideas for new projects and I love the people I work with, because I work with great writers and artists and directors and actors.

I think if I were a superhero saving the world, I'd expect at least not to have to pay income taxes. I mean there should be something in it for a hero who risks his life to save mankind every day.

I hate being too serious about anything. If I'm with my friend, I want to be having fun with him or her. And if anybody is reading my story, I want them to be not only reading the story, but I want them to feel they're having fun; that they're enjoying it. So any way you can make it more informal, more fun-filled, more amusing - instead of just a dry story that goes on and on - if there's any way to do that, I like to try and do it.

Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.

In the beginning Marvel created the Bullpen and the Style. And the Bullpen was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the Artists. And the Spirit of Marvel said, Let there be The Fantasic Four. And there was The Fantasic Four. And Marvel saw The Fantasic Four. And it was good.

I'm the Chairman Emeritus, and according to my contract I am supposed to devote 10% of my time to working for Marvel... and the rest of my time, I can do anything that I wish.

Jack [Kirby] and Joe [Simon] wrote and drew the stories themselves in the beginning and I was just, like, the office boy. But after a while they had more writing than they could handle and I was the only guy around, so they said, "Hey Stan, you think you can write this?" When you're seventeen years old, what do you know? I said, "Sure, I can do it!" And that was it.

Everybody is excited about their projects and I'm excited too. It's not like working. It's like playing with your friends. When I was a kid, I'd say to my mother, "Can I go out and play with the kids now?" Now I'm out playing with the kids all day long.

Ideally, anything one writes should have a social conscience: if you can write a story that thrills, and with a good message, that's the perfect type of a story.

I enjoy the fact that we have these mobile comics now, which are sort of a cross between a comic book and an animated cartoon.

I think comics will always be around. I think there's something nice about a comic book. People love to hold 'em, turn the pages, fold 'em up, roll 'em up, stick 'em in their back pocket, show 'em to a friend, and say, "Hey, look at this."

There's just something that feels nice about holding a comic book!

No matter what you write, it's a matter of putting words in a certain order so that the reader will be interested in what you're writing.

Maybe there will always be a market for the regular comic books because you can read [them] at your own pace. You can save them, collect them, [then] go back and read them again.

The more you read, the better you're going to become as a storyteller.

I love Marvel and the people there. Im glad I m still part of it.

I work with people and we come up with ideas for movies, television and things like that. It's fun and I love doing it.

If you have superheroes or characters that exist in the same world, and you're doing movies of them, wouldn't it be fun to put a couple of them together in one movie? Audiences love that. It's a natural thing to do that.

I'm afraid I go through the same thing all the time.

My problem is I don't see and hear that well, so when I go to the movies, I can make out what's going on, but I can't hear what they're saying. And after the movie, I have to ask whoever I'm with "now, what was that all about?"

I have to force myself to get angry. But I want to show the world that there's another side to me, that I am capable of deep, deep anger and fury. They better watch out for how I'm treated.

I've written so many things over the years that I don't want to go back to being just a scriptwriter. I'm in what I consider to be the enviable position of all I have to do is come up with the idea and write an outline that makes it seem like it's a viable idea that will interest people, and then other people write the scripts -- and I become the executive producer or the producer, depending on how much involvement I have, and I get a creative credit and then move on to the next project.

I don't really see a need to retire as long as I am having fun.

Fans are almost always nice. I really find that they rarely come on too strong.

People like stories that are bigger than life, about characters with unusual powers. And when you get all the characters in the zodiac, it's so colorful, and it's so rich in different attitudes that the characters have.

I'm not that familiar with Andrew Garfield, but if the powers that be chose him, I'm sure he'll be good.

My memories are beautiful because my wife Joan is English and shortly after we were married, we stayed in London and I never forgot it. We loved it so much that we've been back very often and it's always a thrill. To me, there's New York City where I was born and raised and then there's London!

To be honest, when I was writing these stories a million years ago, I never thought about movies at all one way or another. It would have seemed almost miraculous for these things to be movies someday. To me, they were just comic books that I hoped would sell so I could keep my job.

If nobody is looking for a story, and I have no reason to write a story, I would really much rather to do anything else because it's no fun writing stories, particularly not for me. I just do it in order to sell them and make a couple of bucks.

Comic books are just a way to show a story. Then there are the movies, and television and exhibits like this that take the stories and make them seem so realistic. In the comic book, you're just reading a story - hopefully a good, exciting story that whets your appetite for all of this stuff to come.

I have a reputation for doing superheroes, but I like all kinds of writing. In fact, hardly anybody knows this, but I've probably written as many humor stories as superhero stories.

I never really am concerned about the political landscape of the day when I'm writing because no matter what it is, it will change. By the time my stories come out, it will have changed. So I never think much about that.

It's amazing what these superhero movies have become.

You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn't want to see it on the stage?

You remember when Tobey Maguire was first selected, most of the fans were angry. They felt, what kind of a guy is that for a superhero? Nobody thought it was a good idea. Yet he turned out to be great. The people at Marvel who do these things are really pretty smart. If they chose this guy, he'll probably be terrific.

There's never a time when I'm not working. I don't take vacations.

I thought it would be great to do superheroes that have the same kind of life problems that any reader - that anybody could have.

I'm very proud of being a hack. It's why I've lived as long as I have, I think.

If I were retired I wouldn't know what to do because I'd have to think, well, now what is it I want to do? And what I want to do is what I'm doing. I enjoy coming up with new ideas, which if I'm lucky they might be good ideas. I enjoy seeing them take shape. And I'm having fun doing it. So I wouldn't know why I'd want to retire.

I think there's the element of the excitement of what I'm going to see, and with the special effects where you see men flying and walking through walls and shooting flame or whatever they do, especially the younger audiences, which make up a bulk of the moviegoers, they love that sort of thing.

You always exaggerate things in a movie. If it makes a good visual and it excites the kids that's good.

In a sense, the artwork is the most important thing in getting somebody to buy a book. The person probably won't buy a book if he doesn't like the artwork. Once you buy it for the artwork, you hope that the story will also be good.

I'm just working with ideas in my head and with drawings that the artists did. And suddenly to see these things come to life in movies - it's just wonderful.

I'm lucky. I don't have to produce the whole movie. What I've been doing is just coming up with ideas for movies. I write a concept, a treatment, an outline, and if I sell that to a studio, then someone else does the actual production and I go on to another project, although I keep the title executive producer.

I'm used to doing comic books, where every month there's a new comic book! I find that the movie business is not quite the same. It doesn't move quite as fast.

You can't kill a good comic book series.