Top 75 James Gunn Quotes

I am not into this old-school way of doing things, where you kill characters, and you bring them back, and then you kill them again, and then you bring them back, and their deaths mean nothing.

I always felt restrained by lower-budget films. I enjoyed making them, and I felt fulfilled, but I really did always want to make bigger movies.

I think of the Avengers as The Beatles, and the Guardians are the Rolling Stones. That is really how I feel about the groups.

I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I got to direct a movie involving three of my favorite things in the world: space operas, Marvel superheroes and raccoons.

I love raccoons. I had a raccoon figurine collection as a kid, and I now have two movies with ‘Ranger Rick’ jokes in them. I love ’em. They come in my back yard all the time, and we just stare at each other like a couple of idiots.

I’m a huge Howard the Duck fan. For people who don’t know, I’m a huge Marvel Comics fan, but Howard the Duck was maybe my favorite character as a kid. I went back, and I collected all of those comics. I had every comic he was ever in.

‘Monty Python And The Holy Grail’ is a hugely important movie to me. I remember watching it for the first time on cable when I was about 13 years old.

The popularity of fantasy surpassing science fiction and the popularity of apocalyptic fiction, particularly for young adults, may indicate a desire to escape a more difficult and confusing reality, even in astrophysics and particle physics.

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it does buy happier.

One of the things that we’ve tried to do with the ‘Guardians’ films is to allow the women to be full characters.

I don’t see a big difference between the job of directing a low-budget movie and the job of directing a big-budget movie.

I saw ‘Fifth Element’ once when it first came out and never thought much of it.

I was the kid in the neighborhood that was directing everyone else. I was director from the time I was a child.

By isolating the issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, climate change, environment, governance, economics, catastrophe and whatever other problems the present embodies or the future may bring, science fiction can do what Dickens and Sinclair did: make real the consequences of social injustice or human folly.

I don’t see a big difference between the job of directing a low-budget movie and the job of directing a big-budget movie.

Science fiction always has had strains of pessimism and optimism weaving through its historical development, sometimes one dominating and then the other, usually depending on the state of the world.

I guess I am an optimist in a pessimist brain, if that makes any sense. I believe in the innate goodness of most people in this world, and yet I’m a damaged soul like many other people and have my own demons and things I struggle with.

I can’t be told life is beautiful through a normal positive thinking book or a Hallmark movie; that language doesn’t work for me.

I love ‘Empire’ – it’s my favorite of the ‘Star Wars’ series.

I’ve been making movies a long time. I’m a professional at it. I’m not a professional at making soundtracks – that’s not my job. My job is to put the right songs in the movie so the movie works the best it possibly can.

One of the things that we’ve tried to do with the ‘Guardians’ films is to allow the women to be full characters.

I have to say, I feel a weird sort of calling in filmmaking that I didn’t feel with other things. I feel like there are things in life you want to do, and then things you are called to do, and hopefully you can allow yourself to want to do whatever you’re called to do.

I don’t think through anything I do. I just do it, and it’s oftentimes landed me in huge amounts of trouble.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with different planets in the solar system, and I used to create, for every single planet, a different alien race with a certain kind of pet, a certain kind of house, a certain kind of water system, and everything. I would draw these pictures. I had hundreds of these pictures in a box.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with different planets in the solar system, and I used to create, for every single planet, a different alien race with a certain kind of pet, a certain kind of house, a certain kind of water system, and everything. I would draw these pictures. I had hundreds of these pictures in a box.

I’ve come to trust that what I like is what works.

The majority of my life is ‘Guardians,’ but being able to clean my brain a little bit by doing something totally different like ‘Belko’ was incredibly helpful to the creative process.

I like the Nova Corps; I just don’t like Nova that much! He’s okay, you know? I just don’t like that helmet!

I wrote a 20-page document, before I was ever hired, on exactly how the visuals of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ would be approached, how we’d look at creating a new type of space epic. That’s exactly what the movie is today – absolutely everybody has adhered to that original document.

A lot of people die in my movies. So if you’re in a few of my movies, you have a good chance of dying!

I’ve always believed in the power of rational thinking and behavior as the savior of the world, and science fiction as a powerful medium to encourage that, which explains my signature line, ‘Let’s save the world through science fiction.’

Writing a comic book series, you’re so reliant on whoever the artist is. It truly is collaboration.

I think that one of the things that drives me in telling stories, and art in general, is finding the beautiful in a big mass of ugly.

It’s impossible not to constantly adjust the way you look at yourself.

I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I got to direct a movie involving three of my favorite things in the world: space operas, Marvel superheroes and raccoons.

There will be a ‘Guardians 3,’ that’s for sure. We’re trying to figure it out. I’m trying to figure out what I want to do. Really, that’s all it is.

By isolating the issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, climate change, environment, governance, economics, catastrophe and whatever other problems the present embodies or the future may bring, science fiction can do what Dickens and Sinclair did: make real the consequences of social injustice or human folly.

The truth is that I didn’t start out making commercial movies. My films were not film festival movies with the possible exception slightly of ‘Super,’ but I was able to nurture my gifts through the works of artists making lower budget films that needed a place and an outlet.

Science fiction literature’s focus is on ideas, the concept of change, and the impact on humanity. Those concepts are hard to capture on film. They work better in the mind.

I would say the main thing is, don’t just copy yourself, which is what a lot of sequels do. And in some cases, it works. Like James Bond movies. But James Bond is a different type of character.

It’s impossible not to constantly adjust the way you look at yourself.

I don’t think through anything I do. I just do it, and it’s oftentimes landed me in huge amounts of trouble.

I love the attention and I hate the attention, you know? It’s not always good for your soul.

I like Jason Statham movies, like ‘The Transporter’ or whatever. I watch them all the time when they come on TV. Then I saw ‘Crank,’ and I couldn’t believe how awesome it was.

It’s great being a producer! Why am I wasting my career writing and directing? Those are actual jobs in which you work. Being a producer, it’s kind of like you just go to the set, yell at a couple of people, and then stay up all night dancing in nightclubs.

When I was a small child, I partially learned to read with comics, in particular with ‘Scamp,’ about the Lady and the Tramp’s male child. That was the prime comic that made me fall in love with comics as a kid.

I feel like I’ve kinda danced around telling the truest story I can for many years of my life. I’ve been a little distracted by trying to be shocking or edgy or cool or whatever, and by letting go of that and telling the truest story I can – even if it’s about aliens and talking raccoons – it works.

I’m in favor of anything that will give strong women more visibility in popular culture.

I don’t have anything against corporate America. I mean, I guess there’s something about living in a capitalist society that can get kind of terrifying at times.

Honest to God, for me, I’ve never been a guy to stack projects. A lot of these other guys, they like to do this and then line up what they’re doing next and line up what they’re doing next. I just can’t do it.

I’ve come to trust that what I like is what works.

Honest to God, for me, I’ve never been a guy to stack projects. A lot of these other guys, they like to do this and then line up what they’re doing next and line up what they’re doing next. I just can’t do it.

When people go to the theater, people say they want something different, but what they really want is something the same with slight permutations. To really not know what is going to happen next is a hard thing.

I love shooting movies. I love the shots. That’s the thing that I love doing, and I’ve just never been able to do it.

My favorite dark comedy, which is also one of my favorite films of all time, is ‘After Hours.’ I’ve seen ‘After Hours’ as much as almost any film I’ve ever seen in my life; I’ve watched it dozens of times, and I still watch it once a year. I still get a thrill out of it every time I see it.