Wil Wheaton Quotes

Wil Wheaton Says: Don't be a dick.

Things every person should have: •A nemesis. •An evil twin. •A secret headquarters. •An escape hatch. •A partner in crime. •A secret identity.

Sometimes we know in our bones what we really need to do, but we're afraid to do it. Taking a chance and stepping beyond the safety of the world we've always known is the only way to grow, though and without risk there is no reward.

Be honest. Be kind. Be honorable. Work hard. And always be awesome.

Like most gunters, I voted to reelect Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton (again). There were no term limits, and those two geezers had been doing a kick-ass job of protecting user rights for over a decade.

I have found that the key to being happy — well, one of the keys, anyway — is to be easily amused,

You can’t has,' he whispered softly, 'not yours.

The reality of this election is that we can choose between a disappointing Democrat and the end of the world.

As an adult, getting paid thousands of dollars a week to say, “Aye, Sir. Course laid in” is a seriously sweet gig, but when I was a teenager, it sucked.

will never understand why the Internet seems to take away the basic humanity of most people, and allows — no, enables — them to say things that they’d never say to another person face to face.

I wonder if The Lesson is that, in order to succeed, I need to rely upon myself, trust myself, love myself, and not put my happiness and sadness into the hands of others.

I can't believe you said that about fire ants and thunderstorms! You are such a Houstonist!

I voted to reelect Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton (again). There were no term limits, and those two geezers had been doing a kick-ass job of protecting user rights for over a decade.

Lore: Making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS!

I need to rely upon myself, trust myself, love myself and not put my happiness and sadness into the hands of others.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be as good an actor as Patrick, as cool as Frakes, and as funny as Brent. From time to time, one of them would say something to me that made me feel like I'd taken a step in that direction, and it always meant the world to me. I loved it when Brent would joke around with me, because it made me feel like I was the peer I so desperately wanted to be, instead of the clueless teenager I knew I was.

On that day, the library was transformed from a confusing and intimidating collection of books into a thousand different portals through time and space to fantastic worlds for me to explore.*

Well, I’ve got three things working against me before I even walk into the room: 1. I’m the last speaker of the day. The fans are tired and a little burned out. 2. I’m following Michael Dorn and Marina Sirtis. They do conventions together all the time, have a set routine that never fails, and the fans adore them. 3. I was Wesley Crusher.

There is no reason to feel embarrassed when you reach out to a professional for help, because the person you are reaching out to is someone who has literally dedicated their life to helping people like us live, instead of merely exist.

So as you get older, and as your knowledge grows, don’t ever stop learning. Stay curious.

Picard only saw the movie, which had the entire Tales of the Black Starship subplot removed for time.

Hey, as long as you’re not moving the story forward at all, why not have a pod race?

The defining characteristic of [being a nerd] is that we love things.

And it’s not like I never reached out for help. I did! I just didn’t know what questions to ask, and the adults I was close to didn’t know what answers to give.

So don't you ever let a person make you feel bad because you love something they decided is only for nerds. You're loving a thing that's for you>.

If there’s a red dwarf in Canis Major, and it isn’t named Clifford, I’m going to say a swear word.

Like most gunters, I voted to reelect Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton (again).

Like most gunters, I voted to reelect Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton

Riker tells Data to just get on with it already, so Data says Ferengi are like Yankee traders from 18th-century America. This indicates that, in the 24th century, the traditional practice of using 600-year-old comparisons is still in vogue, like when you’re stuck in traffic on the freeway, and say, “Man, this is just like Vasco de Gama trying to go around the Cape of Good Hope!

Remember what it was like on Christmas when you woke up before your parents, and had to sit there until they were ready, knowing that just a few rooms away there was something awesome waiting for you? For the next thirty minutes, I felt that way, while I waited for them to call me back up to the set.

The difference is a matter of shifts in society . . . and in me. These shifts aren’t meant to be an excuse of any kind. I’m happy for the shifts, as it has brought (at least some of) the world to a more enlightened place. A place just a touch freer of bigotry and hatred, including within myself.

Wil Wheaton once explained—in an interview with NPR—what he thought was the key to Stand by Me’s success: Rob Reiner found four young boys who basically were the characters we played. I was awkward and nerdy and shy and uncomfortable in my own skin and really, really sensitive; River was cool and really smart and passionate and even at that age kind of like a father figure to some of us; Jerry was one of the funniest people I had ever seen in my life, either before or since; and Corey was unbelievably angry and in an incredible amount of pain and had an absolutely terrible relationship with his parents. Wil was right.

Nobody gets to tell you what your dream is or is not. Whatever your dream is, you deserve to realize it.

You’ve got to stop worrying about a choice you made fifteen years ago, because you can’t change it.

Like all the other things I’d agonized over, the process of making the decision took more time and energy—and was more painful and scary—than the result.

That includes the gross parts, which I am learning to accept (without condoning) through the words of the great Bob Ross: “You can’t have light without a little darkness.

One of the best things I’ve ever done was take a close look at my mental health and accept that I wasn’t doing fine.

Whoa," says Michael. "What is it?" I ask. Michael shakes his head in disbelief. He points at the screen. "Wil Wheaton saw an I Kill the Mockingbird flyer and tweeted about it." "Wil Wheaton?" I say. "Wil Wheaton!" Michael says again. "Wil Wheaton!" "Who is Wil Wheaton?" "Wil Wheaton!" "Michael," says Elena, "no matter how many times you say his name we still don't know who you're talking about." "He's a gamer!" Michael takes the mouse from Elena and clicks on Wil Wheaton's profile. "He's a total geek hero! He's an author and an actor. He used to be on STAR TREK." I point to the description that Wil Wheaton has written about himself. "It says here that he's just a guy." "Just a guy who used to be on STAR TREK!" says Michael.

I read about a study, which indicated that highly intelligent people tend to have generalized anxiety and other mental health issues at a rate that is significantly greater than a control group.*

It happens so fast, Laina, you don’t even realize it’s happening. One day, your friends are eating breakfast with you in the canteen, and when it’s time for dinner, they’re wearing an Imperial uniform.

One of Geordi’s first stops is to visit his good pal Wesley Crusher, who shows off one of his science projects (a mini tractor beam) and one of his toys, a device that lets Wesley recreate speech from anyone on the ship. Any doubt that Wesley is a complete weenie is removed when we learn that he uses this device to have Captain Picard say things like, “Welcome to the bridge, Wesley,” instead of having Counselor Troi say things like, “Smack my ass, Wesley, I’m a naughty, naughty bitch.

When I look back on most of my life, it breaks my heart that when my brain was unloading an endless pile of what ifs on me, it never asked, “What if I go do this thing that I want to do, and it’s . . . fun? What if I enjoy myself, and I’m really glad I went?

if you suspect that you have a mental illness, there is no reason to be ashamed, or embarrassed, and most importantly, you do not need to be afraid. You do not need to suffer. There is nothing noble in suffering, and there is nothing shameful or weak in asking for help.

I don’t know what the future of my career holds, but I know that whatever is over the horizon, the road I’ve traveled to get here is like those interstates in Texas: everything can look the same, and it can feel like you’re not going anywhere, until you suddenly get where you’re going and realize that you’ve been traveling for a long time.

I remember a woman, speaking at a ceremony when Anne was given an award for National Women’s Health Week. She said, “women need to work in medical research, and in applied medicine, because too many men treat women’s bodies like they are just men’s bodies with female parts, but our bodies are fundamentally different and need to be treated that way.

I live with depression and anxiety.* I take medication, I practice meditation and CBT, and I see a therapist regularly to help me handle it. It doesn’t control my life, and it doesn’t define my life . . . but when it’s really bad, it sure feels like it does. When it’s really bad, it feels like it is the only thing in my entire life, the Alpha and Omega of my existence.

The Enterprise is on a diplomatic mission to meet the Jarada, an alien species with a peculiar affinity for protocol: if Picard doesn’t speak a particular greeting in exactly the right way at exactly the right time, the Jarada won’t join the Federation, and they’ll take all their mythical Jaradan weed with them. You can imagine, the success of this mission is especially important to everyone on Starbase 420.

It’s painful to recall, but I’m not ashamed, because all those thoughts—which I thankfully don’t have anymore, thanks to medical science and therapy—were not my fault any more than the allergies that clog my sinuses when the trees in my neighborhood start doin’ it every spring are my fault. It’s just part of who I am. It’s part of how my brain is wired, and because I know that, I can medically treat it, instead of being a victim of it.

And it makes you feel really, really alone. Like, you are the only person who has ever felt this way, and the only person who ever will feel this way, and if you just tried a little harder, you wouldn’t feel this way. But you do feel this way, because you’re alone. Yep, you’re alone and nobody can help you. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprised if you’re the only one with this infernal internal monologue. Look around you—nobody else seems to have this problem. It’s just you. But that’s not true.

Next Generation was immensely popular at the time, and I was still riding high on the success of Stand by Me. They couldn’t understand why I was so intimidated by these actors – my face was splashed across the cover of every teen magazine in print. Why was I so intimidated? I was a 16 year-old geek, with a chance to meet The Big Three from Star Trek. You do the math.

40 minutes in a city is nothing. But 40 minutes along a rural highway seems like an eternity. So we’re driving along, and I ask my friend if we’re there yet, and he says no, so I say, “Jesus. By the time we get there, the kid won’t even be dead anymore.” There is this pause in the car, and one of the other actors says, “Dude. Did you just quote your own movie?” I answered in the affirmative, and he says, “That was very cool.

I guess that the thing people say to me all the time is, “Were the leeches real?” They then turn to their frat guy friends and snicker, like they’re the first person to ever say that to me. I wait for a second, so they think they’ve really cut me down, and I say, “Yeah. Ask your mom about my scar.” Finding new and preferably disgusting ways to degrade a friend’s mother is always held in high regard.

The audience has been lined up for over an hour already, and I know from experience that an audience’s willingness to enjoy your show is inversely proportional to the amount of time you keep them waiting past the time on the ticket, which is, in this case, 8 p.m.

Yes, he called Voyager “V’ger,” in reference to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. But he’s not a Trekkie. Because “Trekkies are weird.

Mister “I am not a Trekkie” gives me the Vulcan “Live Long and Prosper” salute as I walk away. Of course,

It’s fun to win, sure, but if you only have fun when you win, you completely lose the joy of just playing a game, and being part of a team that works together. You’re not going to win every game you play, so if winning is the only way you have fun, you’re going to have a bad time pretty often.

don’t be the smartest person in the room, its corollary is: if you look around and see that you are the smartest person in the room, find a new room.* This is the only way you keep growing and challenging yourself to be the most interesting human you can be.

but one of the things that drew me to science fiction and then into fantasy was how it rewarded me for using my imagination. And it wasn’t just using my imagination to picture myself on a space station or riding a dragon;* it was using my imagination to visualize and believe in a world where the things that made me weird and awkward would actually make me cool and valuable.

I think about what it means to be a geek or a nerd or a dweeb or a dork or a doofus or a weirdo,* I think that it means that we love things in a uniquely enthusiastic way. And we get so excited about the things that we love, that we can’t help but share them with other people,

And if everything is geeky, maybe nothing is geeky, and that means that gate-keeping in geek and nerd culture is a pointless waste of time.

Look around you—everyone here has their own internal monologue.

Because my brain is broken. There’s all sorts of interesting medical and neurochemical reasons for it, and I’ve learned everything I can about them,* but knowing all of that isn’t enough to make my brain magically start processing serotonin and norepinephrine and dopamine in a balanced way,

YOU must ask for help when anxiety makes you feel out of control. Because we need you. We need you to be well and whole and taking care of yourselves. I know that the prevailing rise of anti-intellectualism that’s plaguing our world right now can be unbelievably depressing.

What I mean is, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by your internal monologue, and the voice delivering it is no longer a friendly one—please—don’t be afraid to ask for help. One of the most insidious lies mental illness tells us is that asking for help, or taking medication to get better, means that we are weak. It means that we are a failure, and we somehow deserve to suffer. This. Is. Bullshit. You don’t deserve to suffer. You are not weak. You are not a failure. Your brain, like mine, needs help to keep its profoundly complicated machinery working. Depression lies, and when it tells you these lies, you can look right back into its stupid face and say, “Shut up. Wil Wheaton told me that it’s okay to get help, and he pretended to live in outer space, so he outranks you.

And this is why I believe that ART is an important part of a well-rounded education, not as an alternative to STEM education, but as a fundamental part of it. I want us to start putting ART into STEM, to make STEAM.*

your dream is, you deserve to realize it.

Wesley Crusher will only live on in reruns. I will never get to bring him to life again, and that makes me a little sad. I’d like to try on his spacesuit and his oversized brain one last time and see how they fit now. After I posted that entry, the

Still, I accepted this invitation to speak tonight because if one of my fundamental rules for living a successful and happy life is: don't be the smartest person in the room, it's corollary is: if you look around and see that you are the smartest person in the room, find a new room. This is the only way you keep growing and challenging yourself to be the most interesting human you can be.

Bob Ross: “You can’t have light without a little darkness.

Mayim Bialik: I loved Fun with Flags so much, especially the one we did with Wil Wheaton. I loved the awkwardness that Jim and I got to play for those characters. I would have done Fun with Flags every week if they would have let me.

I change from present to past tense and back again, and use an annoying passive voice throughout the whole thing.

As the UFO continues to blast away at the Bandi city, Picard tells them to grab Zorn and beam him up to the Enterprise, because that dude totally knows something about the mystery of Farpoint Station. (He totally stole the file off the teacher’s desk when Q wasn’t looking.)Then he tells Tasha to lock phasers onto the UFO, just in case. You know, he’s actually doing a good job handling these things, making logical and difficult decisions while under a not insignificant amount of pressure… and then Q shows up to pee all over everything.

Q is like a stupid Internet Troll; he makes some strawman accusation against Picard, Picard refutes his argument with logic and reason, and Q just changes the terms of the argument, all the while enjoying the attention he’s getting. But does anyone create alt.q.die.die.die? No, of course not. Life is so fucking unfair.

Listen, Q, don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but in Starfleet, we save the universe and fuck the green alien chick twice before breakfast, every day. We’ve got this one, dude.

Back on the Enterprise, Riker heads into the holodeck to meet up with Data, who we learn can’t whistle like a human, wants to be human, and is consequently called “Pinocchio” by Riker. The whole bit really wants to be sweet and a little funny, but it ends up being kind of lame.

They all hop into the turbolift, and Picard says, “Hey, I think it’s great that you guys know each other, because it’s important for my key officers to be familiar with each other’s abilities.” Troi says, “We are, sir,” and Riker and Picard subtly high-five each other as the doors close.

After the probe does its thing, the Jarada make contact: they want to talk to the Captain, and are offended that they can’t immediately speak to the person in charge, which would explain why the Jarada destroyed every planet in the Dell Technical Support system.

Go back to your own timeline Wil Wheaton!

Don't be a dick

If imagination is not set to the task of building a creative life, it busies itself with weaving a web of inner fears and doubts, blame and excuse. —LAURENCE G. BOLDT

As the sun set over the Golden Gate Bridge, I looked out onto America: once, the land of the free. Now, the land of the zombies.

I will never understand why the Internet seems to take away the basic humanity of most people,* and allows—no, enables*—them to say things that they’d never say to another person face-to-face.

I also know that I’ve been letting depression make me feel like shit for the last month or so, and I know that depression lies, so I’m probably just fixated on all the worst case stuff, and not paying enough attention to the awesome stuff.” And the second those words came out of my mouth, it was like someone cast Dispel Depression.* I felt the weight of it lift off me.

It’s hard to accept that the genetic lottery gives us strengths, maybe even a superpower or two, but that it also gives us vulnerabilities.

we in America have done a lot to help people who live with mental illness, we have not done nearly enough to make it okay for our fellow travelers on the wonky brain express to reach out and accept that help.

They lived in a world where mental illness was equated with weakness, and shame, and as a result, I suffered until I was in my thirties.*

She knew that many of my blood relatives had mental illness, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t connect the dots.

I have no idea what depression even was until I was in my twenties, once I was pretty sure that I had it, I suffered with it for another fifteen years, because I was ashamed, I was embarrassed, and I was afraid.