When I was a kid, maybe 11, I remember saying, 'When I grow up I wanna have enough money to buy a really cool car, because I won't.'

I used to write chronologically when I started, from beginning to end. Eventually I went, 'That's absurd; my heart is in this one scene, therefore I must follow it.'

I'm a science fiction geek from birth - that's just who I am.

I don't have a ton of enemies. I get along with people pretty well when I'm not annoying them to death.

Why anybody gets my sense of humor I never know, but I do know that when they do, I keep them as close as I possibly can.

An audience who watches my shows knows who I am, knows that right when they think I'm going to make a joke, I'm going to blow something up, or during the worst peril, I'm going to have someone give someone a kiss - it's just going to happen.

Every kid who hated grownups becomes a grownup. Well, except the ones who died.

I don't write just to be clever. But sometimes I do. And if you don't have an understanding of the language, then the way in which it's bent doesn't actually register. It's the old you-gotta-paint-like-them-before-you-can-paint-like-you thing.

For me, the act of telling the story and showing it to somebody is almost gravy.

I also don't trust Caribou anymore. They're out there, on the tundra, waiting... Something's going down. I'm right about this.

Writers are completely out of touch with reality.

A great scientist is more open to a new idea than almost anybody.

I go to movies expecting to have a whole experience. If I want a movie that doesn't end, I'll go to a French movie. That's a betrayal of trust to me. A movie has to be complete within itself; it can't just build off the first one or play variations.

I don't like uncertainty. I don't play poker. I don't like bluffing.

My absolute favorite part of Comic-Con is seeing, like, a 'Mass Effect' guy hanging out with a 'Sailor Moon,' and they're just having a great time.

Personally, the NSA collecting data on me freaks me out. It totally freaks me out. And yet I'm from the generation that wants to put a GPS in their kids so I always know where they are.

Something like 'Much Ado' happens, and even 'Avengers' happens because of the years of building connections and doing the work and proving yourself.

I never wanted to take a job because I needed money, and I never have.

All of the most important lessons about writing I learned from my father. He never set out to teach me anything, it would just be something he said casually in conversation.

There are many films and TV shows I make where people find themselves in fantastical situations; as often as possible, their reactions to it are very normal.

I like Victorian children's novels extremely a lot. If I would say I collect anything, that's what I'll hunt for now and again at old book stores.

I think everyone who makes movies should be forced to do television. Because you have to finish. You have to get it done, and there are a lot of decisions made just for the sake of making decisions. You do something because it's efficient and because it gets the story told and it connects to the audience.

I hate it when people talk about Buffy as being campy... I hate camp, I don't enjoy dumb TV. I believe Aaron Spelling has single-handedly lowered SAT scores.

I love fantasy. I love horror. I love musicals. Whatever doesn't really happen in life is what I'm interested in. As a way of commenting on everything that does happen in life, because ultimately the only thing I'm really interested in is people.

We are, all of us, incoherent text, and just knowing that - knowing that no matter how much you say, 'I am this' and part of you is not that - means that you can say it.

I love all genres. The only thing I get stymied by is the Family Drama. I don't necessarily know how to approach that.

There's a reason Tony Stark makes fun of 'Thor,' and mentions 'Shakespeare' in the park in 'The Avengers.' It's great to play high drama and comedy alongside a modern story.

There was a time before I felt I was a real writer, when I was a yarn spinner and I just wanted to tell story until it was over. But then there came a time where I was like, 'No, I want to understand something through writing this that I might have not understood before. I want people to come away with something to think about.'

Sarah Michelle Gellar's made some really good choices. She's had some bad breaks. She goes with the independent, interesting young filmmakers and then they get slammed, like 'Southland Tales.' I'm proud of what she's trying to do. It's hard.

If somebody is in a story, they need to be there for a reason, and not just to set up somebody else's story.

Never sit at a table you can't walk away from.

I was never a games night guy, but at some point, social interaction starts to freak me out. So when there's a point, it's easier for me to see the people I love and hang out and try to have fun.

I did my English A level in England, and we studied Shakespeare. I had great, great high school teachers, and we parsed the text within an inch of its life.

I think it's not inaccurate to say that I had a perfectly happy childhood during which I was very unhappy.

My favorite part of Comic-Con? The groupies.

What I do like is hiking. And that's what filmmaking is. It's a hike. It's challenging and exhausting, and you don't know what the terrain is going to be or necessarily even which direction you're going in... but it sure is beautiful.

I've been to two festivals in my life, and I've never been to Toronto. I haven't really been making festival movies. This is new territory for me.

Loneliness is about the scariest thing out there.

I've never met a well-adjusted person. It's weird.

I spent a ton of time alone. I was raised by a feminist; I had a terrifying father and oppressively scary and mean brothers. We had a farm. The rule was between breakfast and lunch you weren't allowed to make a sound.

I don't want the giant ego. I don't want to become Kevin Costner, singing on the soundtrack to The Postman.

Making 'The Avengers' was very important to me, but it was also extremely arduous. I missed my friends and I missed my home, so I decided to throw them all on camera, which is the only way I seem to know to relate to people.

There are two things that I cannot resist: one is musicals and the other is a spaceship in trouble. But I am smart enough not to combine the two things.

Those of us who write spend our entire lives in an endless English class.

I get recognized just often enough to keep my ego bouncing along, but not so much that I can't go places.

My deal with Marvel is I have a consulting deal with them as well as a contract to make 'Avengers.' That means I'll read all the scripts, I'll look at cuts.

I can do web, comic books, macrame, art.

People used to laugh that academics would study Disney movies. There's nothing more important for academics to study, because they shape the minds of our children possibly more than any single thing.

I designed 'Buffy' to be an icon, to be an emotional experience, to be loved in a way that other shows can't be loved. Because it's about adolescence, which is the most important thing people go through in their development, becoming an adult.

I never tire of the heroes that I knew growing up. The fun is not that much different from doing a television show: You're stuck with a certain set of rules, and then, rather than trying to break them, it's just trying to peel away and see what's underneath them. That to me is really fun.