Quotes by Stan Lee

I was stupid in a business way. I should have been greedier.

Every kid wants to be an actor. When I was a kid, I thought, 'Oh, it'd be great to be like Errol Flynn. I want to be an actor.'

I like being with people. I like talking to them. I like everything about my life, so it's fun.

I think I've never stopped feeling like a kid.

Women are often overlooked, taken for granted. They can slip easily through a man's defense.

I always wrote for myself. I figured I'm not that different from other people. If there's a story I like a lot, there's got to be others with similar tastes.

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

In fact, I was too dumb to save any of the old comic books or the old artwork. I used to give them away.

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.

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.

It is impossible to do a movie exactly the way a comic book is written and drawn, just as it's impossible to do a movie exactly like a novel or exactly like anything else. When you go to different forms of media, you have to adapt.

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

With great power, there must also come, great responsibility.

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 have always tried to have a message, not to be a preacher, but a message that shows it's better to be a good guy than a bad guy, and I try to make it clear that doing the right thing is more attractive than not.

I think the way you become a good storyteller is to read a lot of stories and evaluate them in your own mind.

His heart's as cold as an ice cube!' -- Peter Parker.

If all that boasting doesn't tire you out, nothing will!' -- Peter Parker.

Are you tryin' to defeat me by talking me to death?!' -- Peter Parker.

Fighting is the last resort of the ignorant! -- Dr. Strange.

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.

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.

We live in a diverse society -- in fact, a diverse world -- and we must learn to live in peace and with respect for each other.

I'm practically an actor. Even when you do an interview, it's like you're performing a little bit, so yeah, I'm enjoying it, it's fun.

I think almost everybody enjoyed fairy tales when they were young, tales of witches and ogres and monsters and dragons and so forth. You get a little bit older, you can't read fairy tales any more.

I've been the luckiest man in the world because I've had friends, and to have the right friends is everything: people you can depend on, people who tell you the truth if you ask something.

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 am always nostalgic being in New York. Every neighborhood represents something to me. I lived here until I was 60 years old or so. So it was my life.

If you have a character that seems to be all perfect, it's hard to relate to him because when you read a story you really want to empathize with the character that you are reading about. And it's hard to empathize with someone who is flawless and who has no problems.

I love all the voiceovers I do. I can't remember them all, but I seem to do them all of the time. And there's nothing easier because you just stand and read the script, and you don't have to act the way actors do. You don't have to be made up and put costumes on.

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 know the world expects me to have superpowers, and it'll be quite a disappointment. But I just play myself.

For years, kids have been asking me what's the greatest superpower. I always say luck. If you're lucky, everything works. I've been lucky.

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.

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.

I grew up in New York City during the Depression. My earliest recollections were of my parents talking about what they would do if they didn't have the rent money. Luckily, we were never evicted. But my father was unemployed most of the time.

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.

The comic book industry has turned into the wellspring for all of these movies that are all based on the comic books.

If I'm half as good as everybody said I am, I'm far too good to be wasting time with ordinary people. But I seem to be spending my life with ordinary people, who are the best people in the world.

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.

Everybody learns differently and everybody gets to a certain point from a different direction.

In the entertainment industry all that anybody wants to do whether it's music or stories or dancing or comedy or whatever, they want to entertain the public. And they do it any way they can. Sometimes they concentrate simply on entertaining people and they don't care what message they are giving.

I am so impressed with people who can really make a big movie, a good movie. The amount of work that goes into it is incredible.

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.

With great power comes great responsibilty.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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 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.

I'm just somebody who tries to write things that entertain people. And if I can do it in a way that makes them prefer to emulate the good guy than the bad guy, I'm happy.

I think kids love superheroes, and the more you can crowd into a story, the more excited they get.

Every kid loves fairy tales, stories of witches and giants and magicians. Then, when you get a little older you can't read fairy tales anymore.

I want to get that same feeling that everybody logging on to our website is sharing a little bit of an inside joke, and the rest of the world is oblivious to it although I want to have most of the world.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

I guess one person can make a difference.

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

I always figure I'm not unique, and something that would please me hopefully would please a lot of other people that have the same tastes that I do.

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

Comming from your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Once you get the script, you then hope you can get the director that you want. Then you hope he can get the cast he wants. Again, you can go quickly or there can be a million stumbling blocks. There's just no way to know.

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

These stories of people with unusual powers and unusual appearances, who do unusual things, people are always fascinated by them.

I'm happiest when I'm working. If I'm not working, I feel like I'm wasting my time.

Reading is very good. And you can quote me!

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.

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.

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 always felt the 'X-Men,' in a subtle way, often touched upon the subject of racism and inequality, and I believe that subject has come up in other titles, too. But we would never pound hard on the subject, which must be handled with care and intelligence.

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.

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.

I think any comic book -- or really, any book that you can read -- in a sense is an educational tool in that it helps literacy. The more you read, the better you get at it. It almost doesn't matter what you read, the important thing is for young people to become readers.

Luck is one of the most important things in the world and really has a role to play in everything, and in marriage, I've been lucky enough to be married to the same girl for all these years.

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.

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

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.

I have always included minority characters in my stories, often as heroes.

I wouldn't mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian, or anything else, that he stay that way. But we originally made him white. I don't see any reason to change that.

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.

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.

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

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.

I hated teenagers in comics because they were always sidekicks. And I always felt if I were a superhero, there's no way I'd pal around with some teenager, you know.

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.

Because I've spent most of my life with such a beautiful, talented, challenging female, I feel I've gained -- and am still gaining -- a great deal of knowledge about the feminine mystique and about personal relationships -- knowledge which is so important to a writer.

The main thing I want to do, is to make our website the most entertaining website there is on the Internet. I want it to be the premiere site for entertainment, for communication, and for fun.

America is made of different races and different religions, but we're all co-travelers on the spaceship Earth and must respect and help each other along the way.

When I was a kid, Disney was one of my gods. I just loved movies like 'Snow White' and 'Pinocchio.'

I think I've got 12... Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, Plastic-Man, Green Lantern, Sandman, The Justice League, The Atom Legion of Superheroes and Teen Titans.... Just about all of their top titles.

Most people say, I can't wait to retire so I can play golf, or go yachting or whatever they do. Well, if I was playing golf, I would want that to finish so I could go and dream up a new TV show.

Face front, true believers!

It's totally irrational, patently insane to condemn an entire race -- to despise an entire nation -- to vilify an entire religion.

I'd like to own Intel... I'd like to own Microsoft... I'd love to have Warner Bros in my hip pocket.

To my way of thinking, whether it's a superhero movie or a romance or a comedy or whatever, the most important thing is you've got to care about the characters. You've got to understand the characters and you've got to be interested. If the characters are interesting, you're half-way home.

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 those were all things I hated.

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

The experience of reading a printed comic book will never change, but now, thanks to the digital age, there are many different ways to enjoy the same story. Digital comic books, of course, can be interactive in many different ways, allowing the reader to feel like a participant in the story.

Forced idleness is a terrible thing.

You know, I guess one person can make a difference. 'Nuff said.

The only advice anybody can give is if you want to be a writer, keep writing. And read all you can, read everything.

Duane just kept working, not even looking up. We.

And now, until we meet again, may the blessings of Asgard be showered upon you!

There must always be those with the fire of rebellion in their blood! There must always be those who will dare to fight an unbeatable enemy! Only thus can the race of man remain strong and fearless!

I said, Juvenile delinquents eat chocolate cake, so chocolate cake must cause juvenile delinquency, but nobody listened to me. I wasn't on TV.

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

Wives should be kissed -- not heard.

For men must never feel a cause is hopeless -- men must never feel an enemy cannot be beaten!

Nevermore shall men make slaves of others! Not in Asgard -- not on Earth -- not any place where the hammer of Thor can be swung -- or where men of good faith hold freedom dear!

Luck's a revolving door, you just need to know when it's your time to walk through.

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.

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

Nuff said!

Coming from your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!

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.

There is only one who is all powerful, and his greatest weapon is love.

Excelsior!

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

With great power comes great responsibility.

Marvel Studios has depicted the Marvel superheroes so beautifully that the whole world loves them.

All of the characters at Marvel were my ideas, but the ideas meant nothing unless I had somebody who could illustrate it.

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.

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.

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.

When I was a kid, my favorite superhero was Robin Hood.

I think superheroes are bigger than life and they're very colorful.

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.

I don't think you ever outgrow your love for things that are bigger than life and more colorful than the average life. And somehow I feel that these comic book stories are like fairy tales for older people, because they have the same qualities.

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.

Sooner or later, if man is ever to be worthy of his destiny, we must fill our hearts with tolerance.

I think the world has a place for gay superheroes, certainly.

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 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.

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

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.

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