Stan Lee Quotes
32 quotes from Stan Lee — Co-creator of the Marvel Comics universe including Spider-Man, X-Men, Iron Man, and The Avengers..
“I'm happiest when I'm working. If I'm not working, I feel like I'm wasting my time.”
“I was writing so many different things—monster stories, romance stories, westerns, war stories, humor stories. I was like a machine. I could write in any style, any genre. But I wasn't proud of any of it.”
“I wanted to create a hero that all the anti-war people would hate, and then make them love him. Tony Stark was everything the counterculture was against—a millionaire, a weapons manufacturer, a capitalist. But he was also a man trying to use his wealth and technology to make the world better.”
“I always believed that our characters would make great movies someday. I just didn't know it would take forty years for the technology to catch up to our imagination.”
“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, you're doing a good thing.”
“The only advice anybody can give is, if you wanna be a writer, keep writing. And read all you can, learn all you can about the craft of writing, and don't be afraid to experiment.”
“I think there's a little bit of a child in all of us, and we all want to believe in something that's bigger than ourselves, something that can help us when we need it.”
“A superhero's job is to help people, and we can't do that if we don't understand people.”
“Comics are stories; they're like novels or anything else. So the first thing you have to do is become a good storyteller.”
“The thing to me that's fun is trying to make the characters seem like real people. The reader has to be able to identify with them.”
“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.”
“I never thought of them as superheroes; I thought of them as real people who happened to have superpowers.”
“Every character should have a fatal flaw, and every character should have a redeeming quality.”
“The pleasure of reading a story and wondering what will come next for the hero is a pleasure that has lasted for centuries and, I think, will always be with us.”
“I'm a guy who likes working with people, and I like to surround myself with people who are better than I am.”
“The Marvel Method was born out of necessity, but it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to us. It allowed the artists to be co-plotters.”
“Jack Kirby and I were like a team of horses. We understood each other, we each knew what the other could do.”
“I've been the luckiest guy in the world because I've had friends, and to have the right friends is the secret to success.”
“Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today. It's totally irrational and patently insane to condemn an entire race—to despise an entire nation—to vilify an entire religion.”
“I think kids are more intelligent than what we give them credit for. I think they can handle more sophisticated stories.”
“With great power comes great responsibility. That's not just a catch phrase. That's a way of life.”
“I wanted to show that even a monster can be a hero if he tries hard enough.”
“The power of prayer is still the greatest ever known in this endless eternal universe.”
“I guess one person can make a difference, but most of the time, it takes a team of people, and it takes time.”
“If you're writing about a character, his or her family history, their description, their personality, their quirks, you have to know them inside and out, you have to be them.”
“Life is never completely without its challenges.”
“Another definition of a hero is someone who is concerned about other people's well-being, and will go out of his or her way to help them—even if there is no chance of a reward.”
“I have never been embarrassed by earning money doing something I love.”
“The movies have made the characters more famous than they ever were in the comics. And I'm okay with that.”
“I'm just somebody who tries to write things that entertain people. And if I can do it in a way that makes them think a little bit about certain things, I'm happy.”
“Excelsior! That's always been my battle cry. It means 'upward and onward to greater glory!'”
“I think almost everybody enjoyed fairy tales when they were young, things like that. I think there's always been a part of us that wants to believe in something that's bigger than ourselves, something magical.”
