James Tynion IV > Quotes

“Tomorrow is a dream away.”
― Scott Synder, DC Comics: The New 52

“He's a frustrating guy. Trust me, I know. He thinks he knows exactly what he wants and what he doesn't, and he thinks he's right all of the time. But at the end of the day, he's always right about people. When he lets someone in, that means something. When he put you in charge, it was so in this exact situation you would be calling the shots. And I trust that. Because I trust him. Even if I want to strangle him sometimes.”
― James Tynion IV, Batman: Detective Comics, Vol. 1: Rise of the Batmen

“Barack Obama contradicts the image they have in their head for what a President looks like and sounds like, and it unsettles them on a subconscious level.

And then somebody presents an answer to why they feel uncomfortable. He's not from here. He wasn't born in this country, he was born in Kenya.

It doesn't matter that you or I can disprove that theory six ways to Sunday.

There's a part of their brains that feels relieved, because that lie gives them a sense of order.

They aren't bad people for feeling unsettled by a black President. They aren't racist. They're just smart enough to see through the ruse.

And that's when things get very dangerous for us.”
― James Tynion IV, The Department of Truth, Vol 1: The End of the World

“You know why I did it? Sometimes you need to shout until they cry... because when their lives and the lives of everyone around them depend on it, and they just want to break they'll know they can take control. They'll know they can lead. Some folks think it's about whittling you down to follow orders, but to me it's about knowing you can give orders to yourself and others through the worst of it. Through the real hurt.”
― James Tynion IV, Batman: Detective Comics, Vol. 1: Rise of the Batmen

“This is what you need to understand. No one is coming for us.”
― James Tynion IV, The Woods #1

“A fire's hunger only ends in death.”
― James Tynion IV, House of Slaughter, Vol. 3: The Butcher's Return

“Child, you have much to learn of this world. in the meantime, do not take cruel myths to heart. Stories are powerful. They reach inside you and twist your way of seeing things.”
― James Tynion IV, Wynd, Book One: The Flight of the Prince

“The more people believe in something, the more true that thing becomes. The more reality tips in the favor of that belief.”
― James Tynion IV, The Department of Truth, Vol 1: The End of the World

“Do not take cruel myths to heart. Stories are powerful. They reach inside you and twist your way of seeing things”
― James Tynion IV, Wynd #1

“Christianity folds in a whole shit-ton of pagan ideas so the little people don't have to start changing their symbols for a weird religion from the East.

But they also start burning people alive if anyone keeps spreading the old pagan beliefs . . . and they start building a new figure out of pagan lore, from the scraps of previously disconnected scripture.

Suddenly the Biblical Satan becomes the horned, cloven-hoofed Devil, and they use that symbol to make the little people fear all the pagan symbols that got wrapped up into him.

So the masses only believe what the church tells them is or isn't true.”
― James Tynion IV

“You lay a few cards down in a particular order, each representing a big idea, and then you get to decide how it relates to you.

And the more you're in a position where you want the cards to have more meaning, the more meaning you give them.

I definitely had moments where I realized things about myself using the cards, but I've had moment where I realized something about myself answering a Buzzfeed quiz.

It's the same thing. The person provides the meaning.”
― James Tynion IV, The Department of Truth, Vol 2: The City Upon a Hill

“Okay, look out at this bar, and this city. This way of people dressing, and the way we talk, and our dumb jobs and our dumb lives.

I think this will end.

It'll end slowly, though. It'll crack apart, systems will break down because they always break down.

America won't last forever because nothing does or ever will.

And we'll think that's the end of the world. Like while it's happening, that's what we'll call it. but then, thousands of years later. . . . There will still be people.

They'll just be . . . you know . . . different.”
― James Tynion IV, The Nice House on the Lake, Vol. 1

“You cannot kill horror, little one.”
― James Tynion IV, Justice League Dark #3

“I think part of me was waiting for Walter to come back and tell me it was all a joke that had gone too far. That the world hadn't really ended. That we weren't prisoners in this strange house.
Walter was always the person I called when I was in trouble. When I was sad in a way I couldn't talk to other people about, even Naya. He'd been the best man at my wedding. He had this intensity to him, and if he looked you in the eyes and told you that you were doing the right thing, you believed him. Or I did, anyways.
But there was still this... I don't know... this loneliness in him.”
― James Tynion IV, The Nice House on the Lake, Vol. 1

“My mama always told me you just gotta speak up when you’re uncomfortable, and most folks will do the right thing, and the ones who don’t arent worth knowing.”
― James Tynion IV, The Backstagers: 2018 Halloween Intermission #1

“Collective belief shapes the world, so everything is a little bit true, or has the potential to be true.”
― James Tynion IV, The Department of Truth, Vol 1: The End of the World

“The early magicians, to my thinking, must have been people who knew the symbols and stories of the societies next door.

Ones who understood that the Pharaoh's got different gods from the Greeks, and they've got different gods from the Wildmen in the North with the pointy horned hats.

The folks who might come and say your neighbors have better gods than yours, and their rituals are more fun and their temples are better.

Or even worse, they might get you thinking about how strange it is that you both have gods for the sun even though there's only one sun.

Maybe that means the symbol is more powerful than the god.

The magicians are the ones who keep that secret knowledge. That occult knowledge. The understanding that the symbols run the show.”
― James Tynion IV

“Do not take cruel myths to heart. Stories are powerful. They reach inside you and twist your way of seeing things.”
― James Tynion IV, Wynd: The Throne in the Sky #1

“Okay, so you start with a symbol, then you add in ceremony. The idea the wand is the symbol of the cock, which we use to create life.

Some fucking caveman shaman starts carrying around a big stick because he's smarter than the other cavemen and he's the one who can tell the what things mean.

Now Harry Potter's running around with a little dick in his hand shooting out magic cum, and that image carries all the meaning of all those ten thousand years of history and connections.

It's a shortcut that connects you to a larger continuum of symbolism and ritual.

Different societies had different beliefs. . . . But in the end, there were still common symbols with shared meanings. Like the Sun, or water . . . or a big fucking juicy cock.”
― James Tynion IV

“The person provides the personal meaning, but society and history give them deeper meaning.

That's how an idea becomes something more than an idea. How it hooks into our subconscious mind.

The pamphlet in your Vampire Tarot didn't decide that the wand is a phallus. The fact that a wand looks like a big fucking cock did that.

When you make the connection, you give something meaning, and when millions of people make a connection over time, that meaning deepens.”
― James Tynion IV

“For those of you who know, the dread time is upon us. The most horrifying, stressful, agonizing moment of our young lives.

(At least until the next one comes around.)

This is tech week! This is war!”
― James Tynion IV, The Backstagers, Vol. 1: Rebels Without Applause

“Okay, look out at this bar, and this city. This way of people dressing, and the way we talk, and our dumb jobs and our dumb lives.

I think this will end.

It'll end slowly, though. It'll crack apart, systems will break down because they always break down.

America won't last forever because nothing does or ever will.

And we'll think that's the end of the world. Like while it's happening, that's what we'll call it. But then, thousands of years later . . . there will still be people.

They'll just be . . . you know . . . different.”
― James Tynion IV, The Nice House on the Lake, Vol. 1

“Can't live in a crazy forest that's trying to kill you without a top-of-the-line stabbing stick.”
― James Tynion IV, The Woods #2

“Nothing in this world exists on principle. We know for a fact that the world is messy, that people believe in messy things. There aren't rules.

What does it do for your life to rip out the ground beneath your feet?”
― James Tynion IV, The Department of Truth, Vol. 4: The Ministry of Lies

“Do you think you are good, Cassandra?"

"I don't think. I know. I'm not good. I can do good things. But I'm not good.”
― James Tynion IV, Batman: Detective Comics, Vol. 7: Batmen Eternal

“Magic is real. It works. It has impact on the world. The human brain is incredibly powerful, and you can rewire it.

You let yourself become a symbol, in a whole fucking history of symbols, knowing that history and all of its meaning, and you open yourself up to a kind of communion . . .

Ecstasy of the body becomes ecstasy of the mind, and you see things from all new angles that recategorize the mundane world around you.”
― James Tynion IV, The Department of Truth, Vol. 3: Free Country

“Tell your folks you won’t be home for dinner. Tell your teachers that homework is now priority number two.

Or like, seven.”
― James Tynion IV, The Backstagers, Vol. 1: Rebels Without Applause

“We’re the Backstagers. To them we’re out of sight and out of mind. Set pieces show up on stage, props end up on their right spots, the curtains open, the lights come on…

…in their heads it’s just simple stuff. And they don’t want to know any different. They don’t want to know how weird and dangerous it is back here. There’s a magic to the stage. Everyone who’s ever been on one knows that…but backstage…that’s where the real stuff is. The raw stuff that nobody ever thinks about.

Or thanks you for.

…or really ever appreciates.

…they just don’t get us, y’know?

It’s our job to bring all of that magic to life. The backstage is full of secrets and weirdness, but it’s also the only place where we’ve ever felt at home.”
― James Tynion IV, The Backstagers, Vol. 1: Rebels Without Applause

“You remember the smell, don’t you? The sweet, putrid sweat of the dance floor? Those scared young boys dancing with one another. Trying to find themselves in each other. And then they would see you. You remember how to be a predator, don’t you, Corinthian?”
― James Tynion IV, Nightmare Country, Vol. 1

“I think I was spending too much time worrying about what my life could become, I stopped seeing myself in the present. The paths seemed so rigid for a moment, there. I've always had a habit of letting other people shape my mission. But I can't let that happen. I need to shape it myself.”
― James Tynion IV, Batman: Detective Comics, Vol. 7: Batmen Eternal