Stan Lee famous quotes

I'm a frustrated actor. My ... goal is to beat Alfred Hitchcock in the number of cameos. I'm going to try to break his record.
-- Stan Lee

#Numbers #Goal #Frustrated

To me, writing is fun. It doesn't matter what you're writing, as long as you can tell a story.
-- Stan Lee

#Fun #Writing #Long

Achilles, without his heel, you wouldn't even know his name today.
-- Stan Lee

#Names #Today #Achilles

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.
-- Stan Lee

#Writing #Superhero #Stories

If Shakespeare and Michelangelo were alive today, and if they decided to collaborate on a comic, Shakespeare would write the script and Michelangelo would draw it. How could anybody say that this wouldn't be as worthwhile an artform as anything on earth?
-- Stan Lee

#Writing #Alive #Earth

So I'm happiest when I'm working with artists and writers, and involved in stories, whether we're talking about animation or movies or comics or television.
-- Stan Lee

#Artist #Talking #Television

I'm no prophet, but I'm guessing that comic books will always be strong. I don't think anything can really beat the pure fun and pleasure of holding a magazine in your hand, reading the story on paper, being able to roll it up and put it in your pocket, reread again later, show it to a friend, carry it with you, toss it on a shelf, collect them, have a lot of magazines lined up and read them again as a series. I think young people have always loved that. I think they always will.
-- Stan Lee

#Strong #Fun #Book

The thing to me that's fun is trying to make the characters seem believable, or realistic. And it's especially challenging when you're doing fantasy stories, when you're doing superhero types of things.
-- Stan Lee

#Fun #Character #Superhero

I wanted them to be diverse. The whole underlying principle of the X-Men was to try to be an anti-bigotry story to show there's good in every person,
-- Stan Lee

#Men #Trying #Stories

My biggest regret is that I don't really have time to read.
-- Stan Lee

#Regret

I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic-book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realize: entertainment is one of the most important things in people's lives. Without it they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you're able to entertain people, you're doing a good thing.
-- Stan Lee

#Book #Bridges #Careers

I think people have always loved things that are bigger than life, things that are imaginative.
-- Stan Lee

#Thinking #People #Bigger

I never thought that Spider-Man would become the world wide icon that he is. I just hoped the books would sell and I'd keep my job.
-- Stan Lee

#Jobs #Book #Men

Virtually every kid is exposed to giants and ogres and talking wolves, and so forth. And magic. And I think you never outgrow your love for those imaginative, fanciful, farfetched, fantastic characters and situations.
-- Stan Lee

#Character #Kids #Thinking

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.
-- Stan Lee

#Jobs #Book #Writing

We all wish we had super powers. We all wish we could do more than we can do.
-- Stan Lee

#Wish #Super Power

Superheroes in New York, Give me a break!
-- Stan Lee

#New York #Giving #Superhero

Comic books sort of follow with the move - if people see the movie and if they're interested in the character and want to see more of the character, they start buying the comic books. So a good movie helps the sale of the comic books and the comic books help the movie and one hand washes the other. So, I don't think there's any reason to think that comics will die out.
-- Stan Lee

#Moving #Book #Character

Comic books themselves are getting more literate. And there are people who are screenwriters and television writers and novelists who are writing for the comics, for some reason, they love doing it and some of the art work in the comics, I mean it rivals anything you'll see hanging on the walls of museums, they're illustrations more than drawings and all the people are discovering this and they're turning on to it.
-- Stan Lee

#Art #Wall #Book

The cliché I tried to avoid was I hated "teenage sidekicks." I always figured if I were a superhero, there's no way on God's earth that I'm gonna pal around with some teenager. So my publisher insisted I have a teenager in the series, because they always felt teenagers won't read the books unless there's a teenager in the story; which is nonsense.
-- Stan Lee

#Teenage #Book #Superhero

I had been writing comic books for years and I was doing them to please a publisher, who felt that comics are only read by very young children or stupid adults. And therefore, we have to keep the stories very simplistic. And that was the thing I hated.
-- Stan Lee

#Children #Stupid #Book

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."
-- Stan Lee

#Nice #Book #Thinking

No one has a perfect life. Everybody has something that he wishes was not the way it is.
-- Stan Lee

#Perfect #Wish #Way

We're living in a world where everything moves very quickly. We've become a very visual society, so I think it's a very natural thing that people are captivated with the illustrations in a story.
-- Stan Lee

#Moving #Thinking #Illustration

No matter how good a story is, if you're at a newsstand and you see a lot of comic books, you don't know how good the story is unless you read it. But you can spot the artwork instantly, and you know whether you like the artwork, whether it grabs you or not.
-- Stan Lee

#Book #Stories #Matter

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.
-- Stan Lee

#Book #Important #Stories

When you combine the great stories from the comics with the action and visual excitement of the movies, it doesn't get any better!
-- Stan Lee

#Stories #Action #Excitement

I think people are interested in anything that's a little bigger than life and that's colorful and - you know, what they like? They like fairy tales for grownups.
-- Stan Lee

#Thinking #People #Littles

If you wanna be an artist carry sketch pad with you, and sketch everything you see. Get so you can draw anything and it looks like what it's supposed to be. It's a lot of work, but if you really have it in you, it's not like work. It becomes fun.
-- Stan Lee

#Fun #Artist #Pads

The only advice anybody can give is, if you wanna be a writer, keep writing. And read all you can, read everything.
-- Stan Lee

#Writing #Giving #Advice

I like Silver Surfer because he's the most philosophical, always philosophizing about the human race and the human condition and why people are the way they are, why they don't appreciate this wonderful planet they live on... he has a nice moral tone.
-- Stan Lee

#Nice #Philosophical #Race

I like Spider-Man because he's become the most famous. He's the one who's most like me - nothing ever turns out 100 percent OK; he's got a lot of problems, and he does things wrong, and I can relate to that.
-- Stan Lee

#Men #Spiders #Doe

When I was a kid, I loved reading Sherlock Holmes. Now, you don't think of him as a superhero, but he was so damn much smarter than anybody else.
-- Stan Lee

#Reading #Kids #Thinking

Comic books to me are fairy tales for grown-ups.
-- Stan Lee

#Book #Fairy Tale #Comic

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

#Strong #Nice #Fans

I do conventions sometimes every other weekend. Whenever I have time, and it's not too far away. I get a lot of invitations (to appear at conventions) in other countries and I have to turn them down.
-- Stan Lee

#Country #Weekend #Sometimes

I suppose I have come to realize that entertainment is not easily dismissed. Beyond the meaning (of a work of art), it is important to people. Without it, lives can be dull.
-- Stan Lee

#Art #People #Important

Singing a song, playing sports - anything that entertains, that takes people away from their own problems, is good.
-- Stan Lee

#Sports #Song #People

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.
-- Stan Lee

#People #Creative #Drug

I never tried to write for other people. I liked people who had problems I might have, because we all have insecurities, regrets. I like heroes who were not 100-percent perfect, who things to take care of.
-- Stan Lee

#Regret #Hero #Writing

Life is never completely without its challenges.
-- Stan Lee

#Challenges #Life Is

Just because you have superpowers, that doesn't mean your love life would be perfect. I don't think superpowers automatically means there won't be any personality problems, family problems or even money problems. I just tried to write characters who are human beings who also have superpowers.
-- Stan Lee

#Writing #Love Life #Character

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

#Superhero #Would Be #Kind

All I thought about when I wrote my stories was, "I hope that these comic books would sell so I can keep my job and continue to pay the rent." Never in a million years could I have imagined that it would turn into what it has evolved into nowadays. Never.
-- Stan Lee

#Jobs #Book #Years

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.
-- Stan Lee

#Artist #Ideas #Drawing

If there are people who like the work you've done, because of that, they like you and want your autograph and to take a photo, that's really gratifying. You have to be appreciative.
-- Stan Lee

#People #Done #Want

Quality. That's the first word, the one word that comes to mind when I think of the books published by Abrams. In a world where so many companies are willing to cut corners, to do things the easy way in order to enhance the bottom line, it's gratifying to know that there's one company that obviously takes such pride in its finished product, one company that can always be counted on to design and produce a book that is, itself, as much a work of art as the illustrations on its pages.
-- Stan Lee

#Art #Book #Pride

Wherever we find news, excitement, mystery and adventure, there, too, we find the newspaper reporter. Always on the alert for something new, ready to risk his very life for a scoop and finding adventure in every corner of the globe.
-- Stan Lee

#Adventure #Risk #News

The "problem" is that Comic-Con is so damned successful. People who are there seem to have a wonderful time. The very size of it makes it exciting. Wherever you look, there's something exciting. The attendees are always looking around for a familiar face. It's either 'There's a movie star!' Or, 'There's a TV star!' Or, 'There's the guy who drew the Green Lantern!' It means so much to the fans. It makes them feel like they're where it's happening. It's like Woodstock.
-- Stan Lee

#Stars #Mean #Successful

The only time I go on the set is when I have a cameo to do in the picture. I go to the set and I do my little cameo and I meet all the people. It's a great way to spend the day. And then I go back to my own world.
-- Stan Lee

#People #World #Littles

MARVEL IS A CORNUCOPIA OF FANTASY, A WILD IDEA , A SWASHBUCKLING ATTITUDE , AN ESCAPE FROM THE HUMDRUM AND PROSAIC. IT'S A SERENDIPITOUS FEAST FOR THE MIND, THE EYE , AND THE IMAGINATION, A LITERATE CELEBRATION OF UNBRIDLED CREATIVITY, COUPLED WITH A TOUCH OF REBELLION AND AN INSOLENT DESIRE TO SPIT IN THE EYE OF THE DRAGON.
-- Stan Lee

#Attitude #Eye #Creativity

When you work with people whom you like and you admire because they're so good at what they do, it doesn't feel like work. It's like you're playing.
-- Stan Lee

#Work #Play #People

With great power comes great responsibilty.
-- Stan Lee

#Great Power

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

#Mean #Play #Want

The power of prayer is still the greatest ever known in this endless eternal universe.-The Watcher in The Avengers #14
-- Stan Lee

#Prayer #Endless #Stills

Wives should be kissed - not heard.
-- Stan Lee

#Wife #Should #Heard

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

#Nameless

Your humans slaughter each other because of the color of your skin, or your faith or your plitics -- or for no reason at all -- too many of you hate as easily as you draw breath. - Magneto
-- Stan Lee

#Hate #Color #Skins

What the hell could you do? I've never been arrested, I haven't taken drugs, I've had the same wife for 54 years where's anything of interest to people?
-- Stan Lee

#Taken #Years #Wife

People are pissed off about the seemingly impossible goal of social mobility. their proposed solution is to take the wheels off the cart.
-- Stan Lee

#Goal #People #Mobility

To tell you the truth, I never thought of myself as much of a success.
-- Stan Lee

#Success

Once, I'd written a Western story, and one of the panels was just a hand holding a six-shooter, and there was a puff of smoke coming out of the barrel, and a straight horizontal line, indicating the trajectory of the bullet. So that page was sent back to me from the Code office, saying that the particular panel was too violent. I asked them what they meant, and they told me--I swear--"The puff of smoke is too big." Well, of course. So I had the artist make the smoke a little smaller, and the youth of America was saved.
-- Stan Lee

#Artist #Hands #America

... 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.
-- Stan Lee

#Book #Artist #Giving

It's the fact that fans still care. I like all the comics conventions: The smaller ones are easier, the bigger ones are exciting.... Each one I say: Never again. But they're all great.... These things are important because they keep the fans' interest alive in comics. They keep the fans reading and their imaginations stimulated.
-- Stan Lee

#Reading #Imagination #Important

Some people will say, "Why read a comic book? It stifles the imagination. If you read a novel you imagine what people are like. If you read a comic, it's showing you." The only answer I can give is, "You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn't want to see it on the stage?
-- Stan Lee

#Book #Mean #Play

That's what everybody tells me. "I would've had a great comic-book collection, but my mother made me throw them away." But when I was growing up, my mother didn't care. As long as I was reading, she didn't care if my room was filled with comics. I could have saved everything. I was just too stupid to do it.
-- Stan Lee

#Mother #Growing Up #Stupid

I had a publisher who felt comics were just for little kiddies, so he never wanted me to use words of more than two syllables.
-- Stan Lee

#Two #Use #Littles

When you can sit down with a plain sheet of paper in front of you and make some notes, and, little by little, you see it take shape and become a concept for a movie or a TV show. That's a real thrill. You watch it go from notes on a paper to a meeting with writers and directors and actors. I can't think of anything that's more exciting.
-- Stan Lee

#Real #Thinking #Tv Shows

Some artists, such as Jack Kirby, need no plot at all. I mean I'll just say to Jack, "Let's let the next villain be Dr. Doom" ... or I may not even say that. He may tell me. And then he goes home and does it. He's so good at plots, I'm sure he's a thousand times better than I. He just makes up the plots for these stories. All I do is a little editing ... I may tell him that he's gone too far in one direction or another. Of course, occasionally I'll give him a plot, but we're practically both the writers on the things.
-- Stan Lee

#Mean #Home #Artist

Face front, true believers!
-- Stan Lee

#Faces #Believer #True Believer

Reading is very good. And you can quote me!
-- Stan Lee

#Reading #Very Good

I thought it would be fun to take the kind of character that nobody would like, none of our readers would like, and shove him down their throats and make them like him.
-- Stan Lee

#Fun #Character #Would Be

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

#Fun #Long #Needs

I have never had a lap dance in Tampa or any other part of Florida. If I ever did have a lap dance, I don't think I would be discussing television ideas with the girl that was giving it to me.
-- Stan Lee

#Girl #Thinking #Florida

I've been very lucky. All I wanted was to pay the rent. Then these characters took off and suddenly there were Hulk coffee mugs and Iron Man lunchboxes and The Avengers sweatshirts everywhere. Money's okay, but what I really like is working.
-- Stan Lee

#Success #Coffee #Character

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.
-- Stan Lee

#Artist #Darkness #Style

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

#Hammers #Worthy

Comming from your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man
-- Stan Lee

#Men #Friendly #Spiders

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

#People #Glad #Stills

I always thought it was more interesting to think about Reed Richards. As you know, he had the ability to stretch, and sexually, that would seem to be a great asset in many areas.
-- Stan Lee

#Thinking #Interesting #Reeds

Everybody wants to feel that you're writing to a certain demographic because that's good business, but I've never done that ... I tried to write stories that would interest me. I'd say, what would I like to read?... I don't think you can do your best work if you're writing for somebody else, because you never know what that somebody else really thinks or wants.
-- Stan Lee

#Writing #Thinking #Stories

I always sympathized with the people who did work for hire; I was one of them.
-- Stan Lee

#People

I'm as excited as a kid with a new toy to be able to create a unique, exciting, urban superhero for a magazine that I respect as much as VIBE.
-- Stan Lee

#Kids #Unique #Superhero

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

#Thinking #Long #Proud

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.
-- Stan Lee

#Writing #Thinking #Boys

A superhero's catchphrase should be like a really memorable advertising slogan. It sticks in your head and you can't stop humming it. And let's face it, superheroes are just really selling themselves as products.
-- Stan Lee

#Memorable #Superhero #Faces

What did Doctor Doom really want? He wanted to rule the world. Now, think about this. You could walk across the street against a traffic light and get a summons for jaywalking, but you could walk up to a police officer and say "I want to rule the world," and there's nothing he can do about it, that is not a crime. Anybody can want to rule the world. So, even though he was the Fantastic Four's greatest menace, in my mind, he was never a criminal!
-- Stan Lee

#Thinking #Doctors #Light

I'm sort of a pressure writer. If somebody says, "Stan, write something," and I have to have it by tomorrow morning, I'll just sit down and I'll write it. It always seems to come to me. But I'm better doing a rushed job because if it isn't something that's due quickly, I won't work on it until it becomes almost an emergency and then I'll do it.
-- Stan Lee

#Morning #Jobs #Writing

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.
-- Stan Lee

#Moving #Writing #Years

It's a tremendous challenge, because there have been so many characters created over the years. Every time you think you come up with a great name, you find out somebody has already done it. Dreaming up the stories isn't that hard, but coming up with a good title is the toughest part.
-- Stan Lee

#Dream #Character #Thinking

If you're writing about a character, if he's a powerful character, unless you give him vulnerability I don't think he'll be as interesting to the reader.
-- Stan Lee

#Powerful #Character #Writing

I didn’t write 'Guardians of the Galaxy.' I’m not even sure who they all are. I can’t wait to see the movie.
-- Stan Lee

#Writing #Waiting #Guardian

I don't sound disloyal, but I've never had a pair of Marvel pyjamas or underwear. I do have a lot of Marvel figurines at home in a cabinet. Every time they make a new Marvel figure I put it in my cabinet.
-- Stan Lee

#Home #Underwear #Pairs