Favorite JMS quotes

[Jan]

We've been having a lot of fun over on the 'Name that Episode' thread guessing who said something and in which episode. Some of my all-time faves weren't said by characters, though, but by JMS speaking as himself.

My latest fave is in one of his most recent posts:

"If weird were a criterion for ignoring something, then the entire area of quantum physics wouldn't exist."

Prior to that is one that was in an interview rather than one of his posts:

"I enjoy world building. It's a hobby of mine."

Anybody else have favorite JMS-isms?

Jan

[Capt.Montoya]

Direct words from JMS... I can't remember any right now. But I love it when he quotes Harlan Ellison: "You're not entitled to your opinion, you're only entitled to your informed opinion."

[Radhil]

I read through Midwinter one utterly boring day. I do mean read, all the synopsis, all the commentary postings. Out of everything I saw there, the posts where something in the show utterly screwed up, and JMS has chosen the 'Net as his ranting board, are my favorite. Nothing one gets pissed off better than an artist watching other people mangle his work.

Choice quotes:
From Chrysalis, concerning a massive FUBAR cut that was sent out to TV stations:

At this moment, I am preternaturally calm about all this, having passed beyond anger earlier this evening into a kind of zen state of consciousness, utterly unable to wrap my brain around the absolute stupidity of something like this for more than two minutes at a time.

By morning, this will have worn off.

I'm looking forward to it immensely.

From Messages from Earth, about a stray frame from another TV show that ended up in his (a rant good enough to be included in it's entirety):

The executive producer thinks, "He's mistaken, has to be; it must be a series of patterns in the image that look like a city." Being a thorough person, however, the executive producer fires up his copy of the tape, and fast forwards to the shot in question. Pauses, then advances, frame by frame.

Then stops. The executive producer stares at the screen for a very, very long time. Eventually, words form. The executive producer knows that if he posts those words here, not only will they throw him off the system, they will come to his house, burn it down, and sow the ground with salt.

The executive producer knows what that single frame is, knows that it has nothing to do with his show, knows that it's a frame from Hypernauts that somehow crossed into the EFX shot in double-exposure via a computer glitch while rendering. No one saw it. No one noticed it. Until now.

Tomorrow morning, the executive producer is going to make phone calls, and say all the words he can't say here. When he is finished, twenty seven miles of telephone coaxial cable are going to hang melted from the telephone poles. Shortly thereafter, the executive producer is going to put a gun to his head and blow his brains out, in the sure knowledge that if he does not do so, he will most assuredly do it to someone else.

The executive producer thanks you for bringing this to his attention, and would write further, but is currently modeming from a laptop computer on top of his roof, from which he is considering jumping, and the wind up here is causing line noise.

[Capt.Montoya]

Those rants can be a lot of fun indeed...
And the recent posts, from the comics newsgroups, about unwarranted criticism and how those that criticize can't withstand it when they're given the same treatment are also quite enjoyable to me...

[Dr Maturin]

Has that frame been taken out?

[CRONAN]

Por favor, these people have the chance to pick the brain of a talented writer but instead choose to jump up and down making little screeching noises ala the monkey shuffle.

Mind boggling....

[Ben-Thayer Dunnthaedt]

From Chrysalis, concerning a massive FUBAR cut that was sent out to TV stations:

Rad-
What is FUBAR? And please excuse my ignorace in this matter.

[Radhil]

It's an acronym. Translates to F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition.

[Jan]

Also F****ed Up Beyond All Recovery.

Jan

[Capt.Montoya]

You, foul mouthed people... it's "fouled up"

The acronym is from the US forces in WW II, the Brittish forces used SNAFU (situation normal, all "fouled" up).

Both quite useful IMHO.

Apparently those soldiers also wrote NORWICH notes to their wives...
That last one didn't catch up I guess, but could be useful in this age of instant messaging.

[Radhil]

Meh, there's plenty of interchangeable words.

Always was a fan of subbing in frell after Farscape.

I'd heard they were military origin, but thanks for confirming.

[Mimer]

Time for a bit of Necromancy...with JMS being quite the wordsmith even when it comes to posting on the net, finding things (or rather, rants) to post here shouldn't be that hard. In fact, having read a lot of what he's posted on the newsgroups, it's quite easy to see where all those great lines - most often spoken by Marcus and Londo - come from.

Stumbled on this one, kind of funny at times:

JMS responding to criticism about B5 being crap by virtue of product placement of sorts:

So in other words 2001 and Blade Runner don't qualify as decent SF?

I put this in the "get a life" category. If seeing a name of a
product on the back of a wall "consumes the great potential of the
series," if that's all the person can see...I'm sorry, but that's that
person's problem, not mine.

-snip-

Yessir...we've certainly seen how Blade Runner and 2001 and the
Terminator and Alien Nation and Enemy Mine have been ruined for all time by such things.

-snip-

How ANYONE can turn to me and say with a straight face that this kind of commercialism (done twice in one year) will ruin B5 and use STAR TREK -- STAR frigging TREK, the single most merchandised, licensed property in the history of television -- as an example of SF purity is out of his mind. It was STAR TREK, as noted in Engel's book, and Shatner's as well I believe, that stuck an IDIC symbol in in order to merchandise it; it's STAR TREK that changed Federation costumes between TNG and DS9 specifically so they would have another whole set of costumes to merchandise.

-snip-

We have *nothing* to apologize for. And I suggest to this person, as he sits wearing his Star Trek uniform, and his Star Trek communicator pin and his Star Trek phaser, and his Star Trek PJs, beside his collection of Star Trek pins, shirts, iron-ons, glow-in-the-dark Kirks and Spocks, Enterprise models, books and cutouts...as they say in the bible, take the log out of your own eye before you try to remove the splinter from your neighbor's eye. To hold up Star Trek: The Franchise as the model of untouched non-commercial purity is the most laughable thing I have heard in *years*.