Talk:Warren Ellis

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• Cyclops is the best superhero in the world. He is, as far as I'm concerned, the Batman. He's been in intensive training since his early teenage years to lead the first-ever mutant rescue and security team. This is a guy who gets up every morning asking himself how he can be better.

• If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain— do you also believe that television shows are made inside your television set?

• The book is almost always better than the movie. You could have no better case in point than FROM HELL, Alan Moore's best graphic novel to date, brilliantly illustrated by Eddie Campbell. It's hard to describe just how much better the book is. It's like, "If the movie was an episode of Battlestar Galactica with a guest appearance by the Smurfs and everyone spoke Dutch, the graphic novel is Citizen Kane with added sex scenes and music by your favourite ten bands and everyone in the world you ever hated dies at the end." That's how much better it is.

• I have attempted to reflect this in TRANSMET: the understanding that the world can be neither perfect nor doomed. But that it can be better. And the people who get to decide if it's going to be better or not are the people who show up and raise their voices.

• Was I ever upset about John Lennon? I mean, if you're going to write a song as bad as "Woman," you've got to expect some kind of retribution down the pike.

• Horribly, I know this: that Malcolm McDowell only took the GENERATIONS gig so he could be known as the man who killed Captain Kirk.

• You know how many European public figures of the last hundred years have only had one ball? Mark Millar and Hitler.

• (On relationships ending) Relax. These are the quiet times, where you get to think, to take the world in, and to decide who you want to be. And these times will never come again. They're as crucial to your life as the experience of being partnered that you want. Use these days. And, I tell you - just when you think you've about got things sorted out in your head...

• (On Los Angeles) I hate the place. Which I'm sure comes as no surprise. I hate cities I can't walk around. When I try walking in West Hollywood people in their cars slow down and stare at me. I don't think this is entirely down to my shocking personal beauty. Have you ever tried walking in Burbank? Have you ever tried finding somewhere in Burbank to walk to? Walking down Sunset is an exercise in existential horror. Santa Monica's only walkable if death is no hurdle. The air's the wrong colour. People put sunglasses on their dogs. It's a hideous place where humans are not welcome and those who stay suffer eight kinds of brain damage.

• (on Nextwave) When you're putting together any kind of really stupid loud explody movie, I feel you need a Posh English Girl With Guns. Also, a Robot, a Man With One Name Who Hits People, The Blonde and the Magic Negro.

• I understand "professional wrestling" to have been an American comedy programme that was quite popular in the 90s.

• They make me sad, and angry that the world does not yet understand how much the Dog hates the Human.

• Okay, here's the thing. FOOTBALL is a very old game of skill played with a round ball. AMERICAN FOOTBALL is a game played with an ovoid ball by Girls in armour who are afraid of a little scratch or two. The original, superior version of American Football is RUGBY, which is played by Men and Women of courage and character and usually a collection of minor mental illnesses. The greatest sport ever invented by humans, however, is the Sumo.

• Didn't go to university, left education at 18, no idea what writing classes are like. Like most writers I know, I just make it up as I go along. I've never been totally convinced by the idea of "teaching" writing in any case -- I've known people who've used all kinds of processes like that, and they've still been shit. Just shit with good technique. You can't teach the essential spark. You've either got it or you haven't. The good news is that if you go to university, you gain the singular education that allows you to find Eddie Izzard funny.

• You'd be surprised how many people approach me thinking I'm going to try and cut off their thumbs or hit them with a chairleg or something.

• Like I said, it's one of the few real perks of the job, particularly if you do a certain kind of work: you get to meet all kinds of interesting people.

• I grew up in the 80s in England: we'd wake up each morning and look out the window to see if the government had finally put Daleks on the streets.

• I figure that the more of you there are around me, the more chance there is of the inevitable hail of bullets hitting you instead of me.

• Apparently, using the sentence "Does Daddy have to shank a bitch?" is considered unorthodox parenting. Who knew?