I'd rather have Ben Affleck feeling something than twenty minutes of punching CGI Zod. You want moments that resonate with your audience.

I want to talk about what I'm doing now... I'm not interested in what I've done, I'm interested in what I'm about to do.

The key thing if you're a writer is to visualize the scene and convey it to the penciller and turn the penciller loose.

People try to pigeonhole comics by saying they're just for kids. So is The Odyssey. So is the Labors of Hercules, the story of Fa Mulan. The advantage of those stories over the contemporary ones is that they've had 2,000 years of editing. All the crap has been weeded out over time.

My view of Magneto is that he's the terrorist who might someday evolve into a statesman.

From Captain Britain's point of view we live in a great, heavily populated omniverse and our reality is just one part of that. In each of the parallel worlds there is a lighthouse on every shore of every England where the champion has his base.

Captain Britain is not about representing an empire, he's about standing up for everyone and fighting for the betterment of all.

Every significant book at Marvel had its key antagonist. 'The Fantastic Four' had Doctor Doom; 'Spider-Man' had Doc Ock, among others; Thor had Loki, if not Surtur. Without Magneto, the X-Men had nobody.

The weirdest, most eloquent memory I have of the time on the kibbutz is, every Saturday night was movie night, and one of the first movies I remember seeing there was 'Judgment at Nuremberg.'

There are no heritage concepts at Marvel or DC that are untouched.

No creator in modern times is going to stick around with a concept for 20 years. There are simply too many alternatives that writers want to pursue.

The success of 'X-Men' paved the way, I have to presume, for Sony to make Sam Raimi's 'Spider-Man.'

I'm an immigrant.

I get to watch stories I wrote brought to life by the most brilliant actors in cinema.

Like 'Uncanny X-Men,' 'New Excalibur' is the story of people thrown together by fate and wild circumstance who find their way to true and lasting friendship.

You have an iconic character in Superman. You want to keep him vital and relevant to the audience as it evolves. So there's a creative dynamic.

Superman has always been a battle for hope.

You know, for a normal kid it might be how to ask somebody out on a date or how to deal with the SATs or just how to deal with the bully down the block. And the X-Men have the conflict of Magneto or aliens or what-have-you.

When you're given the assignment to write, for example, 'Spider-Man,' the concept, characters and environment are all laid out for you. Everything is pre-established, and your sole responsibility as a creator is to craft an exciting, entertaining, hopefully original adventure, to add layers and colors to a canon that already exists.

One of the virtues of 'The X-Men' was that it managed to transcend the expectations and prejudices of the medium. It appealed to a vaster audience than anyone had ever anticipated from any superhero book, much less 'X-Men.'

Creative life should be more than preaching to the converted, more than going for a core audience of 100,000 people. It should be taking risks, challenging the readership and having enough faith in one's own talent and craft to take readers on that ride.

In terms of the 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' movie, Bryan Singer has been a part of the X-Men family from the first movie. He knows about the comics canon and how it relates to his work as a filmmaker. He's more well versed in the canon than most, as are the people that are working with him.

What you want to do in a film is encapsulate the characters and the stories into one focused, coherent two-hour time block, and that's sometimes hard to do especially when you have a group as varied and distinctive as the 'X-Men' are.

The cool thing about comic books and prose is that if a reader gets confused on page 8, they can backtrack. With films, you sit down in a seat and once the projector starts going you're stuck for the next two hours. There are no do-overs, rewinding or starting again.

My desire as a storyteller is to always catch the readers off guard; to give them something they aren't expecting, and take them in a direction that is satisfying in the here and non.

I'd love to do writing for Hollywood.

The nice thing about genetics is, I can see my kids doing what I used to do, which is inhaling books like breathing.

I find now I'm reading a lot more nonfiction, simply because every time I read fiction, I think I can write it better. But every time I read nonfiction, I learn things.

For me, writing the 'X-Men' was easy - is easy. I know these people, they're my friends.

The interesting thing I realized writing the 'X-Men' is I always had a sense of where I was going.

One of the fun things in the old days about writing with Frank Miller was that every issue of 'Daredevil' was a challenge to every issue of 'X-Men.'

I always had a sense of where I was going with 'Dark Phoenix.' Jean had the greatest power imaginable... and, how's she going to deal with that?

When you're an adolescent, you suddenly wake up one morning and your body is an enemy. There are hormonal changes, physical changes, emotional changes. People are saying to you, 'Now you have to make the decisions that define the rest of your life.' The X-Men takes those elements and pushes them one giant step farther.

Every job I've taken, I like to bring in some new faces.

I surround myself, not with yes men, but people who have their own ideas and are on board with with I want to do.

Any success I have had has not happened overnight; the journey has never felt like me sitting in the back of a limousine sipping champagne. It has always been more like riding up a hill on a pushbike, and the chain has come off.

I think everybody is under the impression that everyone wants to work in the Premier League. I want to work at the top level like everyone else, but it doesn't mean that's the Premier League.

He was a huge football man - he loved football. He was a good parent, a great father, and brilliant with me.

Even when I was growing up as a young boy, when I was playing schoolboy football, there were other guys who were as good as I was, maybe some even better technically. But I was prepared to stick to what was going to make me become a professional football player when I left school, and that was a lot of sacrifice and because my attitude was right.

Sometimes in football, the best team does not necessarily win; it's the team that plays best on the day that prevails.

I think, a lot of guys who want to be professional football players, they see the Premiership players, and they see the finished article, but there's a lot of hard work that's gone into their careers for them to get there. There's a lot of sacrifice, and I think people tend to forget that.

I thought the first Welsh team I played in was the golden generation, with Neville Southall, Mark Hughes, Ian Rush, Dean Saunders, Gary Speed, and Ryan Giggs.

I don't like talking past the next game. It's never served me right in the past.

Champions League football in the Premier League - you're talking about the top, big, massive clubs, and it's not something I think I'd get linked with.

With success comes complacency if you let it happen. It is human nature; there is that urge to think about how well you have done.

For me, the training has to be a mixture of hard work - it has to have a good structure, a good base - but also, I don't want all my players to be like machines.

Concentration and focus - they are very important, just as important as in anything, I suppose, if you're going to succeed. I've seen a lot of good players on the training ground, but when it comes to the game, they can't keep the same levels up on a Saturday.

You can't manufacture team spirit; it doesn't come from having a good night out and a laugh.

The biggest word in football, and it's a dirty word - no one likes to use it - is accountability.

You can only ask someone of their best. That's it. If you lose, and you've given your best, that's how it goes.