Fictional Superhero Quotes

Adults...struggle desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conform to the rules of everyday life. Adults foolishly demand to know how Superman can possibly fly, or how Batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night, when the answer is obvious even to the smallest child: because it's not real.

That damned Hurker! He had the neck to suggest to me today that he could find a buyer for our plant—if he was made a partner!” “I hope you told him what to do with that suggestion!” “I did. Told him I wasn’t selling, but if he wanted to buy a share he should talk to my legal adviser.” Marcus straightened in his chair and wiped his hands across his face. “And he told me that I had forty eight hours to reconsider my answer, or shipping might prove very difficult—and that there would be some queries initiated over my use of a dome now owned by CalBank!

We are all future butterflies who think, wrongly, that we are just slugs. And we are evolving, whether we admit it or not, into something else. Something with wings.

We all know he ranks me above Iron Man, Thor, and whatever other Avenger makes an on-screen appearance. Not just because I'm clearly better and clearly not fictional. But because I'm his bodyguard. His real-life superhero.

My breath stills, and I swear I can feel the fire inside swirling around just under my skin, as if asking if it did what I wanted before going back into hiding.

The superhero, his underwear bagging at the seat and knees, is just a country boy at heart, tutored to perceive all human action as good or bad, orderly or dynamic, and so doesn't know whether to shit or fly.

He was quiet for a moment. “So, in this analogy, you’re Mary Jane?” “You got that right, Tiger.

Buddy, you have no idea what I am capable of. Now, put the rifle down on the ground. Step back and walk away. Then leave this place and do not ever come back. If you do that, I will let you live.

A lot of people feel that way. That if you didn’t pay your dues by being ostracized then you’re not *really* a geek. I don’t think that though. It’s not an exclusive club that you need to pay some social price to get in. Being a geek is about loving something passionately beyond all reason or sense. And it need not necessarily be related to science fiction, fantas, superheroes, etcetera. You can be a gardening geek, a model train geek, stamp collecting geek, a baby geek… It’s about enthusiasm, in my opinion. From his blog RE: Thirty years of D&D

She's given up trying to stand out.

I'm just different...for a reason. I can do good with my gifts, and I can't believe I'm just fully realizing that now.

Amazing? My heart fluttered. “But I don’t want Flash or Harry,” I murmured. “You want Spider-Man,” he finished for me, looking a little wistful. I shrugged. “And Peter Parker.” He looked at me, very seriously. “Then don’t settle,” he said.

And who wouldn't wish that? Certainly everyone here- dressed up as aliens, and wizards, and zombies, and superheroes- wants desperately to be inside a story, to be part of something more logical and meaningful than real life seems to be. Because even worlds with dragons and time machines seem to be more ordered than our own. When you live for stories, when you spend so much of your time immersed in careful constructs of three and five acts, it sometimes feels like you're just stumbling through the rest of life, trying to divine meaningful narrative threads from the chaos. Which, as I learned the hard way this weekend, can be painfully fruitless. Fiction is there when real life fails you. But it's not a substitute.

I’ve never been a believer in fate. I like to think I’m in control, that my life hasn’t been plotted out ahead of time. Sometimes all it takes is one wild thought, one brave decision to change everything. This must be one of those times.

He doesn’t look a violent type—so polite, and so patrician. You never hear him raise his voice.” She thought about it. “No, you don’t, do you?” It struck her that the Captain exuded an air of quiet command. His ‘orders’ were always delivered in polite terms, but very few people made the mistake of not carrying them out immediately. “I expect he doesn’t usually have to though.” She laughed. “You don’t get appointed to command a ship like the Vanguard unless you know how to get people to do what you want them to.

When it becomes acceptable to kill another man or woman, childhood dies.” whispered Laurence. “When it becomes acceptable to kill a child…humanity dies.

Remember Ping-fa, Sun Tzu,’ Art of War—read between the lines: kick ass and take names later.” Mad Stargirl

I cannot say that truth is stranger than fiction, because I have never had acquaintance with either,

What if...the attack changed something? What if it changed me?

The lights came up as Dylan Raddeck walked nonchalantly into the room. As expected he stopped, staring at his killer … Eyes fixed on her target, Bast hesitated as James Heron appeared behind him. For a fraction of a second too long, she wavered, unable to decide her target, then she snarled, and fired a series of the needles at Radeck, seeing them strike exactly at her aiming point. The only problem was that he didn’t go down. Nor did Heron. Instead they stepped nimbly aside and an armoured figure behind them got off an accurate shot. It wasn’t a killing shot. It was intended to disable and disarm her—Mr Brown was specific, he wanted her alive. Unfortunately the prosthetics she wore to disguise her anatomy absorbed most of the paralysing agent. She screamed in frustration as she went down. With an effort, she turned her needle projector on herself, and fired.

It's the superhero problem . . . .Superpowers make everything personal. Batman versus Joker. Fantastic Four versus Galactus. The Big G might be the Devourer of Worlds, but in the end he's just a dude. Beat him and the problem goes away. But the real problems aren't like that. You can't solve them by hitting them. The real supervillains. . . . were people in suits who met in rooms and decided things. Destroy one and another would take her place

But the superheroes showed me how to overcome the Bomb. Superhero stories woke me up to my own potential. They gave me the basis of a code of ethics I still live by. They inspired my creativity, brought me money, and made it possible for me to turn doing what I loved into a career. They helped me grasp and understand the geometry of higher dimensions and alerted me to the fact that everything is real, especially our fictions. By offering role models whose heroism and transcendent qualities would once have been haloed and clothed in floaty robes, they nurtured in me a sense of the cosmic and ineffable that the turgid, dogmatically stupid "dad" religions could never match. I had no need for faith. My gods were real, made of paper and light, and they rolled up into my pocket like a superstring dimension.

She did ask where he’d been, though, and he obviously told the truth: He’d been helping Bethany, who was half-fictional, find her missing father in a superhero comic, only to be thrown into a Pick the Plot book by a fictional man named Nobody, who had then separated the fictional and nonfictional worlds and sent Owen and Bethany back to the nonfictional world through the last open portal between their worlds, the one that led to Neverland. And since that portal connected to London, that’s where they emerged.

I’m conscious of race whenever I’m writing, just as I’m conscious of class, religion, human psychology, politics — everything that makes up the human experience. I don’t think I can do a good job if I’m not paying attention to what’s meaningful to people, and in American culture, there isn’t anything that informs human interaction more than the idea of race.

Evil does not listen to reason.

[W]as it any stranger, really,...than Rigel licking the spine of every book in the house to prove he could taste the difference between fiction and nonfiction? It was not.

See, I know my life probably sounds glamorous and all, but trust me, it’s not. Living with a bunch of do-gooders comes with some major drawbacks. At the top of the list is the fact that while superheroes are really great at the big things—like thwarting the forces of evil—they really stink at the little things. Like, for example, remembering their kid’s birthday. - Elliott Harkness, age 12

There are threads of fiction intricately woven into our muscles. Fictional characters such as Superman, Black Panther, Wonder Woman etc., are birthed from something struggling to come alife from deep within us.

Jess is painfully aware of how young she is. Her shirtsleeves don't quite extend to her wrists; after a growth spurt last summer, her debate clothes don't fit as well as she thought. She feels as if she's playing dress-up.

During my first few months of Facebooking, I discovered that my page had fostered a collective nostalgia for specific cultural icons. These started, unsurprisingly, within the realm of science fiction and fantasy. They commonly included a pointy-eared Vulcan from a certain groundbreaking 1960s television show. Just as often, though, I found myself sharing images of a diminutive, ancient, green and disarmingly wise Jedi Master who speaks in flip-side down English. Or, if feeling more sinister, I’d post pictures of his black-cloaked, dark-sided, heavy-breathing nemesis. As an aside, I initially received from Star Trek fans considerable “push-back,” or at least many raised Spock brows, when I began sharing images of Yoda and Darth Vader. To the purists, this bordered on sacrilege.. But as I like to remind fans, I was the only actor to work within both franchises, having also voiced the part of Lok Durd from the animated show Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It was the virality of these early posts, shared by thousands of fans without any prodding from me, that got me thinking. Why do we love Spock, Yoda and Darth Vader so much? And what is it about characters like these that causes fans to click “like” and “share” so readily? One thing was clear: Cultural icons help people define who they are today because they shaped who they were as children. We all “like” Yoda because we all loved The Empire Strikes Back, probably watched it many times, and can recite our favorite lines. Indeed, we all can quote Yoda, and we all have tried out our best impression of him. When someone posts a meme of Yoda, many immediately share it, not just because they think it is funny (though it usually is — it’s hard to go wrong with the Master), but because it says something about the sharer. It’s shorthand for saying, “This little guy made a huge impact on me, not sure what it is, but for certain a huge impact. Did it make one on you, too? I’m clicking ‘share’ to affirm something you may not know about me. I ‘like’ Yoda.” And isn’t that what sharing on Facebook is all about? It’s not simply that the sharer wants you to snortle or “LOL” as it were. That’s part of it, but not the core. At its core is a statement about one’s belief system, one that includes the wisdom of Yoda. Other eminently shareable icons included beloved Tolkien characters, particularly Gandalf (as played by the inimitable Sir Ian McKellan). Gandalf, like Yoda, is somehow always above reproach and unfailingly epic. Like Yoda, Gandalf has his darker counterpart. Gollum is a fan favorite because he is a fallen figure who could reform with the right guidance. It doesn’t hurt that his every meme is invariably read in his distinctive, blood-curdling rasp. Then there’s also Batman, who seems to have survived both Adam West and Christian Bale, but whose questionable relationship to the Boy Wonder left plenty of room for hilarious homoerotic undertones. But seriously, there is something about the brooding, misunderstood and “chaotic-good” nature of this superhero that touches all of our hearts.

Shaver’s worldview was a deeply paranoid one in which pretty much everything of importance was traced back to evil deros and sinister machines in the hollow earth. He did not believe in God, an afterlife, a spiritual world, or paranormal powers: all such htings were the purely physical and totally illusory effects of the ray machines of the deros. We have all been duped, and we are constantly being zapped in our dreams, diseases, and disasters. “The unseen world beneath our feet, malignant and horrible, is complete in its mastery of Earth,” he declared with not a doubt or qualification in sight. So, too, there is no such thing as astral travel or spirits. The spirits seen in séances are in fact projections of the machines controlled again by entirely physical creatures seething and scheming below us. Like other hollow earthers before him, Richard Shaver was what Palmer called “an extreme materialist.” He knew nothing of the psychology of projection, and he seemed completely incapable of thinking symbolically or metaphorically, which I take as a fairly clear symptom of whatever psychological condition he suffered.

Patrick West.” Nick spoke so quietly the words were hardly more than a soft exhalation. “Student. Swimmer. Fan of lurid supernatural romances, €linore, and BadMadRad. Casual gamer. Admirer of Jaguar, fictional warrior princesses, and soprano witch queens. Lover of historical buildings. Idealist who wants to build cities where people can live well. Owner of strong opinions he never hesitates to defend, no matter how obviously wrong. Quick to laugh. Spontaneous and unselfconscious, except when he thinks too much, or tries too hard. Talks too much, with hardly any filter between the brain and the mouth. Adaptable. Outgoing. Unreserved. Loud. Talented. Whole-hearted. Foolhardy. Stronger than he thinks. Wiser than he seems.

Misery comes to miser; joy comes to wiser. (A Very Hot Cup of Tea, Empathy) Juvenile invites, youth tries, adult applies, and the old man dies. (A Straw Man, Empathy) In everyone, there lives a superhero. (The Medicine Man, Empathy) Faith is the strongest word in any dictionary. (The Wisdom Beard, Empathy) I’ve entered into your feelings; it’s your turn now. (Empathy)

I understand your feelings, James, but I can’t allow it. If it helps, I’m not finding it easy either.” The Admiral paused, considering his words. He wanted to take out these Pantheon agents, every last one of them, and he knew which he was up against. But it looked like the price would be high. “Mars is like a bloody rabbit warren. The early settlements tunnelled all over the bloody place looking for water, mineral deposits, and, of course, to create habitats for themselves. They didn’t have the equipment to create the shields we have there now. Most of them gave up when habitable planets became available, and the attempts at greening the place fell through—and now we have squatters in some of the abandoned areas, and all sorts of questionable activities turning up.

When Pat gave her ‘criminal-hero’ Tom Ripley a charmed and parentless life, a wealthy, socially poised Alter Ego (Dickie Greenleaf), and a guilt-free modus operandi (after he kills Dickie, Tom murders only when necessary), she was doing just what her fellow comic book artists were doing with their Superheroes: allowing her fictional character to finesse situations she herself could only approach in wish fulfillment. And when she reimagined her own psychological split in Ripley’s character — endowing him with both her weakest traits (paralyzing self-consciousness and hero-worship) and her wildest dreams (murder and money) — she was turning the material of the ‘comic book’ upside down and making it into something very like a ‘tragic book.’ 'It is always so easy for me to see the world upside down,’ Pat wrote in her diary– and everywhere else.

Mad, in exasperation, cried out to the unseen force, “Why did you summon us? There must be a reason. Tell us.” She heard a dreamlike voice. “You are Stargirls.” The voice paused, letting the fog and confusion of their nightmare to lift. Lyn found her voice, “But why us?” “You are the chosen ones by prophecy; you have proven your worthiness. A time warp brought you here. The one you opened was no accident. It was left a hundred thousand years ago just for you. Your Star training as children has prepared you well. You are ready for the next stage in your evolution.

In her socks, Egg glides down the hallway, as if on ice. She's like the Flash, so fast you can see only a blur The Flash is almost invisible, but it's the almost that troubles her, the red streak of almost that catches the eye. Superheroes save the day. She knows they are fiction, but a part of her wants so much for them to be real, like Newton's equal and opposite forces.

Everyone asks me how I got started into writing. I wish I had some cool story to tell, but the truth is pretty lame. My wife and I were having a drink on our back porch and I mentioned a concept I'd been mulling over. She suggested that I write it down, and so I figured I'd make a few notes and get it out of my system. No matter how I tried though, it just wouldn't let me write it in any other way than a story. Believe me when I say I tried, but 63,000 words later I realized that I needed a chart to track the plot and personas to maintain character consistency. So I just gave up and let it write itself from that point on. As far as I'm concerned at this point, I'm just hanging on and trying to keep up.

This is perhaps the biggest departure from the science fiction norm. We do not have ‘the cocky guy,’ ‘the fast-talker,’ ‘the brain,’ ‘the wacky alien sidekick’ or any of the other usual characters who populate a space series. Our characters are living, breathing people with all the emotional complexity and contradictions present in quality dramas like The West Wing or The Sopranos. In this way, we hope to challenge our audience in ways that other genre pieces do not. We want the audience to connect with the characters of Galactica as people. Our characters are not super-heroes. They are not an elite. They are everyday people caught up in an enormous cataclysm and trying to survive it as best they can. “They are you and me.

Superheroes are works of fiction—created by individuals to hold up humanity’s finest attributes and remind us that the choices we make in life have profound consequences. They also embody some of the qualities we aspire to, and as such, we can learn a great deal from them.

What better way to destroy a civilization, society or a race than to set people into the wild oscillations which follow their turning over their judgment and decision-making faculties to a superhero?

You will agree that we need to see some kind of proof of this superpower of yours.

You did this somehow, didn't you? You changed Misha's memories about last night!" "Not just Misha's," the voice said. "Everyone who witnessed it, including the police who were called. I even fixed the counter you smashed, so there’s no evidence of anything unusual happening last night. You have nothing to worry about anymore." ​"Who are you that you could do that? I know you helped me, and I'm grateful, but you messed with all those people's minds! You even made Josh forget!" "Would you rather I killed them all? Because that was my alternative. I've done it before." "What?

Fiction is a type of one-way entertainment. This is not an especially complex phenomenon: We can appreciate detestable things in fiction because those detestable things didn’t happen to anyone who’s actually alive. It’s as straightforward as that. A child can understand it. The reverse, however, is harder to comprehend. It’s difficult to understand why people only support certain desirable things if they remain unreal. Yet it happens all the time, and especially with depictions of vigilantes. Batman is a beloved fictional figure who would not be beloved in a nonfictional world, even if the real-life version was identical to his fabricated image in every conceivable way. He would be seen as a brutal freak, scarier to the public than the criminals he captured. We would not believe he was good. We would believe his thirst for justice was a disarticulation of his own sick psychology. Batman is not a superhero because of his physical abilities and mental acuities; Batman is a superhero because he seems like a moral impossibility. No one believes a real human would live that far outside the law for the good of other people. His altruistic motives are plausible only in a fake world.

Enough with worship of fiction from comics and scriptures! It's time to be the hero and take the world on our shoulders.

Hero Worship (The Sonnet) We used to worship the sun and the moon, We used to worship stones and trees. Then reason grew stronger along with imagination, So our worship shifted from elements to entities. Some of them were real and some fully fictitious, We just needed an excuse to externalize our divinity. Even today we keep inventing fictitious characters, Despite knowing they are fiction we pledge our loyalty. It seems like we are always holding out for a hero, Outside our very own everyday, ordinary psyche. Fiction is healthy so long as we grow no dependency, Real heroes are just humans standing unbent on duty. Enough with worship of fiction from comics and scriptures! It's time to be the hero and take the world on our shoulders.

Yet the people yearned for superheroes, dreaming of them in films and comic books, but, like the disbelieved Cassandra, only villains were permitted to tell the truth...

Myths & Comics (The Sonnet) Some modern superheroes are green in color, Some ancient superheroes are blue in color. Some worship hulk, ironman, captain marvel, Some are fanatics of Zeus, Poseidon, Krishna. Mythologies are but comics of the old days, Just like comics are nothing but modern myths. Fiction is okay in its place, but trouble begins, When life is belittled and fiction is worshiped. Inspiration can come from anywhere, real or not, But all is useless, if it produces mindless savages. Even I've written fiction to explore some situations, Though based on reality, some of it is highly exaggerated. If it brings you back to life, only then it's worth it. Fiction is supposed to enhance reality, not enslave it.

We're born into pain, our constant companion through life. There are things you see, things you experience that you can never wash away or rid yourself of—never. They're like ink impregnated into skin, tattooed on your consciousness, malformed and dark and hideous. There are things we see that we will never be able to unsee. They change us to the core.

(five stars) COMPLEX PLOT WITH MANY CHARACTERS By Tim Janson Part Sci-fi, part fantasy, with elements of covert intrigue and superhero action, Black Tide is one of the more multifaceted stories I've read in quite a long time. Writer Debbie Bishop has woven a story that is extremely intricate and layered with plots, and sub-plots and even a few sub sub-plots, I think. It's certainly not a story you can breeze through and I found myself re-reading sections just to make sure I had everything straight. One thing Bishop does is devote a full page here and there to a character, giving their background, powers, etc, which really helps you get a handle on who is who in the story. Kind of like a graphic novel scorecard. The art by Mike S. Miller is first-rate and very smooth. If you like in-depth, elaborate storylines, then this is unquestionably a book you'll want to read. It's rare that you get a comic series this complex today. Reviewed by Tim Janson

Some people are molded by loss. Others, destroyed. But still, there is another type of people. They aren’t broken. They aren’t proud. They aren’t superheroes. They’re just people, indifferent in entirety, moving each day without a single care, without a single question. Life is just a daily meal. Served, chewed up, taken away before it gets too decayed. Sometimes disgusting, sometimes elegant, but, in the end, it’s always taken away and brought elsewhere. They have many names for these people— weird, disconnected, cold, heartless, cruel— but in reality they are only one thing: people.

We don't become white even if we wash ourselves with a kilo of soap. We are not angels who do not know the word sin, but we are also not devils whose work is nothing but misleading. In humans there are always paradoxes, contradictions and inconsistencies, but that doesn't mean our existence has no meaning. Black and white humans cannot be seen solely from their skin color, degree level, gender differences or other dichotomous things based on social stratification in society. In fact, life is not always what it seems. Life is not a story in fiction or superhero stories. We don't pull everything into the corner where we want to stand. Seeing things from a perspective with binary opposition; honesty versus hypocrisy, egoism versus altruism, good versus evil, batman versus joker...

Go to Rapid, find Rez and his gang, gain their trust... Then betray them.

And what happened to destroying cities and breaking into houses and kidnapping for ransom money? I didn't know supers did...this.

It shouldn't matter to me that we have to earn their trust only to break it. It's not like they're human.

The number of fictional superheroes increases in proportion to the lack of actual accountability in people.

Fantasy is healthy when practiced with moderation. Too much fiction paralyzes responsibility and reason.

Fantasy and Responsibility (The Sonnet) Fantasy is good so long as it doesn't make us, Oblivious to our responsibility of reality. Imagination expands the mind for sure, Only when it empowers our acts of accountability. Growing up in India, I did not have superman, But I did indulge religiously in some shaktimaan. I don't know whether it influenced my making, But it sure did fill my childhood with fascination. People draw inspiration from different places, That's a normal tenet of the mind, not a violation. But inspiration is inspiration only when it leads, To collective uplift, otherwise it's just delusion. Fantasy is healthy when practiced with moderation. Too much fiction paralyzes responsibility and reason.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a free mind, must be in want of a superhero.

Lyn, this was the “Aha!” moment when Desta found another astonishing skeleton. Remarkably, it appeared utterly human but existed before humans walked the Earth. Clutched in its hand a small sphere attached to an elaborate gold necklace. The sphere was not like any material on Earth. Remember when I told you our origins might lie in the stars? Well, I think we found the answer in the Afar desert Max

THAT’S WHAT SF IS ALL ABOUT. IF YOU WISH TO YIELD TO REALITY, GO READ PHILIP ROTH; READ THE NEW YORK LITERARY ESTABLISHMENT MAINSTREAM BESTSELLING WRITERS. . . . THIS IS WHY I LOVE SF. I LOVE TO READ IT; I LOVE TO WRITE IT. THE SF WRITER SEES NOT JUST POSSIBILITIES BUT WILD POSSIBILITIES. IT’S NOT JUST, “WHAT IF—.” IT’S “MY GOD; WHAT IF—.” IN FRENZY AND HYSTERIA. THE MARTIANS ARE ALWAYS COMING.

Mommy? What about the 11th one? Storm? Do you think she is able to save the world?" My mother looked long and hard at me, and there seemed to be a hint of sadness in her eyes. "Yes dear. I think Storm is capable of more than she can ever imagine.

The glorification of authoritarian, unaccountable violence, inflicted by righteous white men against gutter slime and deviants, is at the heart of American pulp fiction from Westerns through superheroes.

Fate does not make mistakes