Ed Brubaker > Quotes

“Can't be part of the rat race when you're one of the rats who knows you're in a cage.”
― Ed Brubaker

“Whatever you do, remember that. You're going to make a difference. A lot of times it won't be huge, it won't be visible even. But it will matter just the same. Don't do it for praise or money, that's what I want to tell you. Do it because it needs to be done. Do it to make your world better.”
― Ed Brubaker, Gotham Central, Book One: In the Line of Duty

“I loved you, you know... It's not my fault the world is what it is.”
― Ed Brubaker, Fatale, Vol. 1: Death Chases Me

“It's because of my grandfather that I became a Young Avenger. But it's hard sometimes, to be a black kid carrying a name like "Patriot". I remember talking to Captain America about before he died, and he explained what Patriotism meant to him...
It wasn't about blindly supporting your government. It was about knowing what your country could be, what it should be... And trying to lead it there through your example. And holding it accountable when it failed. I remember he said: "There's noting patriotic about corruption or cover-ups... or defending them. But exposing them, well, that takes a hero.”
― Ed Brubaker, Young Avengers Presents #1

“The world went insane before I did, I'm just adapting to the new reality.”
― Ed Brubaker, Kill or be Killed, Vol. 4

“When you're reading a good noir, the shocks and twists have a way of feeling deja vu-like, as if you saw them coming, but hoped the characters would take a left turn... not answer the phone, not sleep with that woman, not sell drugs to those cops... but knew they would. It would have been wrong if they didn't, and the real surprise can be that you care about someone you know is in for hell. You relate to them, even when their hell is so much bigger than your own. But we're all going to die, and we all make mistakes.

The best noir stories make you forget plot entirely by giving you characters that feel so well-realised you can't look away as they fall.”
― Ed Brubaker

“Revenge. That's what he had come for... But it didn't really exist, did it?

Just empty regret and bitter heartbreak, wandering the streets.

The city around him, white and grey and cold, felt suddenly so small.

Hyde had been right about family, there was no escaping it...

Even when there was no one left to run from.”
― Ed Brubaker, Criminal, Vol. 2: Lawless

“it wore him down, knowing how small he was...

how insignificant he was to the things in the shadows...

it wore him down until there was so little left in him...

that he almost forgot who he really was.”
― Ed Brubaker, Fatale: The Deluxe Edition, Vol. 1

“We weren’t heroes. We were killers. That’s the reason we survived so long… Because this world belongs to monsters...It shouldn’t.”
― Ed Brubaker, Pulp

“Sometimes when I'm writing a superhero story I wonder if they really have to punch each other in the face. Is that really going to solve anything? I feel the same way sometimes when I watch episodes of Law & Order. I'm like, "Yeah, right. You found the sex offender and now everything is fine." TV is big on closure, but I think closure is horseshit in real life. I'm still haunted by stuff I did in my teen years when I think about it too much.”
― Ed Brubaker

“I prefer to control my brain's dopamine reactions myself. Not be at the mercy of... butterflies.”
― Ed Brubaker, My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies

“Sometimes I think if you didn't have me, there wouldn't be a single person in the world who really understood you...”
― Ed Brubaker, Captain America: Winter Soldier - Ultimate Collection

“Wealth wants to be able to do whatever the fuck it wants to...

And it's winning the war.”
― Ed Brubaker, Kill or be Killed, Vol. 4

“A sailor at war with the wind and the sea.”
― Ed Brubaker, The Fade Out, Vol. 3

“There is no us, and you know that as well as I do. There can’t be. This is just a dream we’re having. While all our friends sleep.”
― Ed Brubaker, Deadenders

“I guess you only know your home when you come back to it.”
― Ed Brubaker, Catwoman, Volume 2: No Easy Way Down

“He was broken from the start. And this stupid world took what was left of him and ground it into sand.”
― Ed Brubaker, Kill or be Killed, Vol. 4

“Bucky did the things I couldn’t. I was the icon. I wore the flag… But while I gave speeches to troops in the trenches… He was doing what he’d been trained to do… and he was highly trained.”
― Ed Brubaker, Captain America: Winter Soldier - Ultimate Collection

“Charlie had always been a sucker for this part... the first days. The days when you let yourself believe the lies... Not just that there's someone who truly sees you... truly understands you... to your soul... but that you even want them to. That's the sweetest lie, the one you tell yourself.”
― Ed Brubaker

“Captain America: Damn you, you fool! Hasn’t there been enough death today?
Colonel Karpov: You do not understand...you cannot. You and the Germans, you have your super-soldiers...your secret weapons...But we Russians...we have nothing but our winter.”
― Ed Brubaker

“Like I said, she always amazes me.”
― Ed Brubaker, Winter Soldier #1

“During the Cold War, there was a theory. That one agent, in the right place, at the right time...with the right skills...could be more effective than an army.”
― Ed Brubaker, Winter Soldier #1

“Midnighter: I told you this wasn't going to end well...
Bendix: ...but...I did what you...what the Authority...never could...fixed earth... Midnighter: No. You just gave them peace through corporate control and ignorance... through mindless consumerism.
Bendix: Bulls*%t! The air is clean...no wars...people are happier...you can't deny...it's a finer world.”
― Ed Brubaker, The Authority: Revolution, Vol. 2

“I've never been much for tears, anyway.”
― Ed Brubaker , Velvet, Vol. 3: The Man Who Stole the World

“And before it was over, Tracy did get the answers he wanted, and a few he didn't.

But it seemed to him that was just the nature of answers.”
― Ed Brubaker

“Being a person was so frustrating and stupid sometimes.”
― Ed Brubaker, Friday, Book One: The First Day of Christmas

“Their fate was set when it became known that their whole crew consisted entirely of lying snitches”
― Ed Brubaker

“People put walls around themselves, but you can't just climb over them. You hace to find the cracks instead... And break through just enough that they can see who you are.
Or at least, who you might be.”
― Ed Brubaker, My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies

“I wanted to be like her because she mattered.”
― Ed Brubaker

“And she thinks she is the lucky one because she got to escape”
― Ed Brubaker, Fatale, Vol. 5: Curse the Demon