Top 35 Marjorie Liu Quotes

Every single girl in the world has had to fight to have herself heard, to have space, and to have a self in societies that try their best to deny them all three.

Word of mouth is the saving grace of us all. If you love something and you think your friend will love it, just talk about it.

My solo series, in some ways, have been rarely truly solo.

Finding the voice of a character, no matter who it is – from Black Widow to Han Solo – is the first and most important hurdle for me to cross in any work of fiction.

There are many different ways to express intimacy – a look, a touch – and I think it enriches the characters and stories when you create those moments and then build on them.

Freedom to tell any story I want, with all the imaginary tools of my trade, is why I love writing novels. I love taking an idea, fleshing it out into a new world – and going on adventures with characters who day-dream themselves into existence and take on lives of their own.

Individual writers can certainly make a difference, but they are working within a system, an institution, that still holds tremendous power over whose voices are heard and whose voices are rewarded.

Sana Takeda is a genius. It’s really that simple. Her vision and sense of story and beauty is beyond compare. I loved working with her on ‘X-23.’ I knew, though, that she could do much more beyond the constraints of a traditional superhero story.

We’ve been conditioned to be incredibly avoidant. ‘I’m afraid I’ll be called a racist if I say something wrong,’ is the familiar retort. Well, okay, that’s scary and difficult, but staying silent, avoiding the issue, doesn’t mean that racism goes away.

I don’t want to give people the wrong advice to follow their dreams no matter what, because it’s not fun to be a starving artist. But on the other hand, life is short, and if you are burning with a passion to do something, then do it. Work hard, study hard at it, and don’t give up.

I wanted to be her; I wanted to write her. Red Sonja became anchored in my imagination like a mountain.

We imagine ‘the end’ as a world-devastating event, but every time there’s a terrible earthquake, a tsunami, an outbreak of disease – that’s apocalyptic, on a micro-scale.

We all know that I love writing Gambit.

We’re not accustomed to giving women the space to express the full range of emotions and flaws that men are permitted. Anger and aggressiveness aren’t part of the scale of what is acceptable behavior in women, whereas men – in reality and in fiction – are allowed a much fuller range of emotion.

To all the young kids of color – and not so young – people who want to use their voices, who are thinking, ‘This seems difficult because I don’t see myself out there,’ I tell you, you must be persistent because we need you. We need you so, so badly.

At his heart, Gambit is a good man who believes in taking care of his friends, and his friends are what’s most important to him. People are his home. He will do anything for those who matter to him.

I feel like the character of Han Solo is irreverent. A very serious, precious story about Han Solo would not be that enjoyable.

I was always into fantasy characters, stories of magic, but after Red Sonja, I became obsessed with the persona, the image, of the warrior woman – the sword-wielding, defiant, fearless woman.

Han Solo has always been – and I think for a lot of people, too – this iconic character who’s the absolute definition of cool.

I got into comics because I wrote an ‘X-Men’ novel for Pocket Books, and I introduced myself to the head of recruitment at Marvel. I’d heard through the grapevine they liked the book, so that gave me the courage to go up to them and be like, ‘Hey, if you ever need a writer, here I am.’

Muscles are fleeting. Bodies give out. But integrity, honor? The confidence to be oneself, to follow one’s heart? The compassionate drive to help others, even at great risk? That’s strength.

Take ‘Ex Machina.’ Everyone said it was one of the great feminist works of science fiction. But what I found disappointing is that everything about the main female character is defined by men.

In my solo series, I feel like I’ve often dealt with groups of people.

I don’t want it to be a mission, but of course I always love to see more diversity in comics. I always love to see more women.

Because there are almost no men in ‘Monstress,’ we’re focused completely on women. It’s removed from traditional structures.

As women, we have to deal with constant threats of violence. And it’s in our media and fiction, too. So we internalize it.

As creators and as readers, we need to always be pushing it – by looking for the books, looking for the artists and people and stories to support what we feel to be a better representation of all women. Of real women.

A dark, fantastic adventure set in an alternate 1900s Asia, ‘Monstress’ is buried deep in the supernatural. It’s a story I’ve wanted to tell for a long time – it just took me awhile to put all the pieces together.

My dad is Chinese, and my mom is a white American, and they married only ten years after the United States Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal to ban mixed marriages. Imagine that. Marriages between people of different races – now common and accepted – were illegal in many states up until the late Sixties.

As a writer – and a romance novelist, no less – I’ve always found it a bit odd when characters in comic books remain in relationship limbo for years at a time.

Part of the reason why my folks – why any immigrant family – wants their kids to go into law or medicine is because there’s the promise of reliable work. That’s a powerful idea that got hammered into my head growing up: Be this thing, or else you’ll starve.

I could be shooting myself in the foot, but in some ways, I feel I’ve said all I’ve needed to say when to comes to, say, the ‘X-Men.’ I think I’ve hit the bright points, I think I’ve hit what I wanted to hit, and I can be happy moving on doing other things.

I was going to be a lawyer, and I had studied hard, but then it suddenly occurred to me in a very deep, profound way that I didn’t want to keep practicing law for the rest of my life.

Timing is irrelevant when it comes to desire.

If you tell people what everything is before they have a chance to experience it, then I feel like it’s a much different experience.