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Grant Morrison Quotes

Grant Morrison, MBE is a Scottish comic book writer, playwright, and occultist. He is known for his nonlinear narratives and countercultural leanings in his runs on titles including DC Comics's Animal Man, Batman, JLA, Action Comics, All-Star Superman, Vertigo's The Invisibles, and Fleetway's 2000 AD.

✵ 31. January 1960
Grant Morrison photo

Works
Sebastian O
Grant Morrison
The Filth
Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison: 43   quotes 0   likes

Famous Grant Morrison Quotes

“Sometimes… sometimes I think the Asylum is a head. We're inside a huge head that dreams us all into being. Perhaps it's your head, Batman. Arkham is a looking glass… and we are you.”

Grant Morrison

Source: Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

“Sometimes it’s only madness that makes us what we are.”

Grant Morrison

Source: Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

“Sometimes you wonder, in an interconnected universe, who's dreaming who?”

Grant Morrison

Source: Animal Man, Vol. 2: Origin of the Species

“Metaphor is one of a group of problem-solving medicines known as figures of speech which are normally used to treat literal thinking and other diseases.”

Grant Morrison book The Filth

Source: The Filth

“Then I reminded myself that all intelligent children suffer bad dreams.”

Grant Morrison

Source: Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

“I just wanted all the wars to be over so that we could spend the money on starships and Mars colonies.”

Grant Morrison

Source: Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

Grant Morrison Quotes about people

“We're so familiar with written language that we sometimes forget how outlandish a concept it must have seemed to our ancestors. Writing allowed people to copy and transfer their thoughts and their tribal codes of conduct to others, even unto generations they themselves would not live to personally instruct, affect or control. The words themselves must have seemed alive and immortal and as "holy" as ghosts. Written law was thus a way of mastering time and influencing the future, a weapon greater than fire and steel, I hope you'll agree. When read, the written word made the head buzz and ring and fill up with voices and commands from nowhere, as if God Himself had come thundering down through the symbols, off the page and into the room, fertilising and impregnating the mind with his Ghostly, unmistakable presence.”

Grant Morrison

2005
http://suicidegirls.com/words/Grant+Morrison/
On writing

“Everything is literally entangled, it can all be communicated with and affected 'at a distance' because there is no distance, only a simulation of apparent separation which our limited consciousness feeds us second by second at 11 bits. The 'telepathy' which brings people together is no more or less supernatural or unlikely than the 'telepathy' which brings two of your fingers together when you think about it. Patience, participation and constant close observation of what's going on, on the inside and on the outside will soon make you a fine sorcerer, if that's what you want to be.”

Grant Morrison

2004
https://web.archive.org/web/20040807071522/http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20048.html Popimage interview
On magic

“Most of the people who do this kind of work, do it out of love, like the love you'd show to an ailing friend.”

Grant Morrison

2004
https://web.archive.org/web/20040803000924/http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20041.html Popimage interview
On comics

“I love to work in the comics medium -- I really do -- and I've realised that a total contempt for the intelligence of the audience is the key to success. You know that Doom Force thing I did recently for D. C.? -- the pisstake of X-Force, right? Well, eighty percent of the people who sent letters of comment in on the story actually took the thing seriously! They didn't see the joke! It's horrific. Tom Peyer phoned me up and read page after page of these insane letters. That was the turning point. That is the moment that I became a super-villain.”

Grant Morrison

1992
http://web.archive.org/web/20040920205650/www.crgn.demon.co.uk/morrison/irony3.jpg
On comics

“Most human lives are forgotten after four generations. We build our splendid houses on the edge of the abyss then distract and dazzle ourselves with entertainers and sex while we slowly at first, then more rapidly, spin around the ever-thirsty plughole in the middle. My treasured possessions -- all the silly little mementoes and toys and special books I’ve carried with me for decades -- will wind up on flea market tables or rot on garbage heaps. Someone else will inhabit the rooms that were mine. Everything that was important to me will mean nothing to the countless generations that follow our own. In the grand sprawl of it all, I have no significance at all. I don’t believe a giant gaseous pensioner will reward or censure me when my body stops working and I don’t believe individual consciousness survives for long after brain death so I lack the consolations of religion. I wanted Annihilator to peek into that implacable moment where everything we are comes to an end so I had to follow the Black Brick Road all the way down and seriously consider the abject pointlessness of all human endeavours. I found these contemplations thrilling and I was drawn to research pure nihilism, which led me to Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound and back to Ligotti. I have a fundamentally optimistic and positive view of human existence and the future and I think it’s important to face intelligent, well-argued challenges to that view on a regular basis. While I agree with Ligotti that the universe is, on the face of it, a blind emergent process, driven by chance over billions of years of trial and error to ultimately produce creatures capable of little more than flamboyant expressions of the agonizing awareness of their own imminent deaths, I don’t share his slightly huffy disappointment at this state of affairs. If the universe is intrinsically meaningless, if the mindless re-arrangement of atomic debris into temporarily arising then dissipating forms has no point, I can only ask, why do I see meaning everywhere, why can I find a point in everything? Why do other human beings like me seem to see meaning in everything too? If the sun is only an apocalyptic series of hydrogen fusion reactions, why does it look like an angel and inspire poetry? Why does the flesh and fur-covered bone and jelly of my cat’s face melt my heart? Is all that surging, roaring incandescent meaning inside me, or is it out there? “Meaning” to me is equivalent to “Magic.” The more significance we bring to things, even to the smallest and least important things, the more special, the more “magical” they seem to become. For all that materialistic science and existential philosophy tells us we live in a chaotic, meaningless universe, the evidence of my senses and the accounts of other human beings seem to indicate that, in fact, the whole universe and everything in it explodes second-to-second with beauty, horror, grandeur and significance when and wherever it comes into contact with consciousness. Therefore, it’s completely down to us to revel in our ability to make meaning, or not. Ligotti, like many extreme Buddhist philosophers, starts from the position that life is an agonizing, heartbreaking grave-bound veil of tears. This seems to be a somewhat hyperbolic view of human life; as far as I can see most of us round here muddle through ignoring death until it comes in close and life’s mostly all right with just enough significant episodes of sheer joy and connection and just enough sh-tty episodes of pain or fear. The notion that the whole span of our lives is no more than some dreadful rehearsal for hell may resonate with the deeply sensitive among us but by and large life is pretty okay generally for most of us. And for some, especially in the developed countries, “okay” equals luxurious. To focus on the moments of pain and fear we all experience and then to pretend they represent the totality of our conscious experience seems to me a little effete and indulgent. Most people don’t get to be born at all, ever. To see in that radiant impossibility only pointlessness, to see our experience as malignantly useless, as Ligotti does, seems to me a bit camp.”

Grant Morrison

2014
http://www.blastr.com/2014-9-12/grant-morrisons-big-talk-getting-deep-writer-annihilator-multiversity
On life

“What people often forget, of course, is that Magneto, unlike the lovely Sir Ian McKellen, is a mad old terrorist twat. No matter how he justifies his stupid, brutal behaviour, or how anyone else tries to justify it, in the end he's just an old bastard with daft, old ideas based on violence and coercion. I really wanted to make that clear (when writing New X-Men).”

Grant Morrison

2004
https://web.archive.org/web/20040803001942/http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20044.html Popimage interview
On The X-Men

Grant Morrison Quotes about the trip

“The only thing that made me, or any of us, special was that no one in the whole of history would ever see the universe exactly the same way any other of us saw it.”

Grant Morrison

Source: Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

“I couldn't think of one clever way to stop this guy, so I just trusted to mindless violence.”

Grant Morrison

Source: Doom Patrol, Vol. 1: Crawling from the Wreckage

“Talking to oneself, I have often thought, is the best way to be sure of intelligent and witty conversation.”

Grant Morrison Sebastian O

Source: Sebastian O

“Everyone does magic all the time in different ways. "Life" plus "significance" = magic.”

Grant Morrison

Popimage interview https://web.archive.org/web/20040803001942/http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20044.html
On magic
Context: All the comics are sigils. "Sigil" as a word is out of date. All this magic stuff needs new terminology because it's not what people are being told it is at all. It's not all this wearying symbolic misdirection that's being dragged up from the Victorian Age, when no-one was allowed to talk plainly and everything was in coy poetic code. The world's at a crisis point and it's time to stop bullshitting around with Qabalah and Thelema and Chaos and Information and all the rest of the metaphoric smoke and mirrors designed to make the rubes think magicians are "special" people with special powers. It's not like that. Everyone does magic all the time in different ways. "Life" plus "significance" = magic.

“I see no reason why children as young as six, seven, or even three shouldn't be allowed to produce corporate comic books to relentless monthly deadlines. And have to write several titles at once to make a decent living. That's what a proper childhood's all about isn't it? This is the 21st century after all and these unruly little bastards have been milking post-Victorian sentimentality for all it's worth for way too long. Time to get kids back where they belong - up chimneys, down mines, and tied to the printing presses! If you can pick up a brick to smash a car window, then you can build me a textile factory, son … here's a whole half dollar for your day's labor. Now put down that Justin Timberlake bio-comic and get back on the production line!”

Grant Morrison

2003
http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=36&t=001597
On comics

Grant Morrison Quotes

“The real world is filled with ghost stories, non sequiturs, inexplicable mysteries, dead ends and absurdities”

Grant Morrison

On life
Context: Otherwise, I know I’m often wasting my breath and electronic ink saying this, but the “real-world” is a pretty weird place where lots of inexplicable things happen all the time, and I like to catch the flavor of that too. It just seems more modern and authentic to me as a storyteller. The “real world” doesn’t come with the neat three-act structures and resolutions we love to impose on it, and if repeated doses of movie and TV-storytelling have convinced anyone that it does, it‘s time to get out and about a bit. The real world is filled with ghost stories, non sequiturs, inexplicable mysteries, dead ends and absurdities, and I think it’s cool to season our comfortable fictions with at least a little taste of what actual reality is like. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/060904-Grant-Batman.html

World , Dead

“All this magic stuff needs new terminology because it's not what people are being told it is at all.”

Grant Morrison

Popimage interview https://web.archive.org/web/20040803001942/http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20044.html
On magic
Context: All the comics are sigils. "Sigil" as a word is out of date. All this magic stuff needs new terminology because it's not what people are being told it is at all. It's not all this wearying symbolic misdirection that's being dragged up from the Victorian Age, when no-one was allowed to talk plainly and everything was in coy poetic code. The world's at a crisis point and it's time to stop bullshitting around with Qabalah and Thelema and Chaos and Information and all the rest of the metaphoric smoke and mirrors designed to make the rubes think magicians are "special" people with special powers. It's not like that. Everyone does magic all the time in different ways. "Life" plus "significance" = magic.

People

“We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.”

Grant Morrison

Source: Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

Love

“I run blindly through the madhouse… And I cannot even pray… For I have no God.”

Grant Morrison

Source: Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

God

“Only nothing is impossible.”

Grant Morrison

“Writers and artists build by hand little worlds that they hope might effect change in real minds, in the real world where stories are read. A story can make us cry and laugh, break our hearts, or make us angry enough to change the world.”

Grant Morrison

Source: Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

World , Hope , Change , Reading

“It's salt. Why don't you sprinkle some on me, honey? Aren't I just good enough to eat?”

Grant Morrison

Source: Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

“The interior of our skulls contains a portal to infinity.”

Grant Morrison

Source: Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

“There's a palace in your head, boy. Learn to live in it always.”

Grant Morrison

Source: The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution

Boy , Learning

“One must commit acts of the highest treason only when dressed in the most resplendent finery.”

Grant Morrison Sebastian O

Source: Sebastian O

“The moon is so beautiful. It's a big silver dollar, flipped by God. And it landed scarred side up, see? So He made the world.”

Grant Morrison

Source: Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

God , World , Beauty

“From now on, I'm opting for ontological terrorism.”

Grant Morrison

Source: The Invisibles, Vol. 6: Kissing Mister Quimper

“Einstein was wrong! I"M the speed of like CRACKING through shivery rainbows and GOD the sky whirls and withers like a melting RAINBOW!”

Grant Morrison

Source: Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

God , Speed

“I must admit to being increasingly deranged by the kinds of bizarre myths which have grown like moss around my name in comics fan circles - I keep coming up against this idiot savant image; me reflected back at myself as a shambling, incoherent drug addict, wanking and drooling out meaningless gibberish which can only be understood by 'those lying bastards' who claim they can see 'Magic Eye' 3-d pictures and wee men reading the news on the TV.”

Grant Morrison

2004
https://web.archive.org/web/20041012215227/http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20042.html Popimage interview
On himself

Men , Lying , Reading

“I use media exposure as a means of playing with multiple personalities. Each interview is a different me and they're all untrustworthy”

Grant Morrison

2000
http://web.archive.org/web/20010215211642/http://www.bbc.co.uk/edfest/chat/post_chat.shtml
On himself

Personality

“Let's face it; regular monthly superhero comic books have taken on the look and smell of old men's pants. It's hardly a surprise comics lost the teenage audience or that the adult audience is now bored and irritated by the endless recycling of images they've already seen and words they've already read.”

Grant Morrison

2003
http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=36&t=001597
On comics

Men , Books , Reading

“When Nietzsche said God is dead, he forgot to mention that Satan died in the same horrific accident.”

Grant Morrison

http://uk.comics.ign.com/articles/950/950703p4.html
On life

God , Dead

“Truthfully, the job security in this business is uncertain, the hours are long, long and lonely, the audience is increasingly small, fickle and dissatisfied, like 3 of the 7 Dwarves. Respect is nonexistent, success fleeting; you'd be better off in a boy band, where at least you'd get laid before they made you obsolete.”

Grant Morrison

2004
https://web.archive.org/web/20040803001942/http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20044.html Popimage interview
On comics

Boy , Business , Success

“The 'Planet X' story was partially intended as a comment on the exhausted, circular nature of the X-Men's ever-popular battle with Magneto and by extension, the equally cyclical nature of superhero franchise re-inventions. I ended the book exactly where I came on board, with Logan killing Magneto AGAIN, as he had done at the end of Scott Lobdell's run. Evil never dies in comic book universes. It just keeps coming back. Imagine Hitler back for the hundredth time to menace mankind. (2004)”

Grant Morrison

https://web.archive.org/web/20040803001942/http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20044.html Popimage interview
On The X-Men

Men , Books , Imagination , Nature

“My work ethic is rigorous, brutal, and uncompromising. I've had my pension plans in place for a long time and I never spend more than I have or forget to pay my tax bills. My repressed, inner Protestant is an absolute Godsend in that respect. I also have lots of highly-paid and well-regarded work outside the comics field now and with Jupiter in the second house on my horoscope, I shouldn't have to worry too much about my dotage. I love the future and it loves me.”

Grant Morrison

2003
http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=36&t=001597
On himself

Love , Time , Future , Housing

“I'd say to myself or whoever I was with, 'It'll look good in the biography.' and then I'd go ahead and do whatever daft thing it was - like taking acid on the sacred mesa or doing the bungee-jump, getting the haircut, dancing with the stranger, talking to the crowd - whatever I was 'scared' of mostly, or fancied doing, or never dared before, I'd try it on the basis that it would make for a more interesting read one day.”

Grant Morrison

2004
http://www.popimage.com/content/grant2004.html
On life

Reading , Dance

“"Real life?" What's that?”

Grant Morrison

2003
http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=36&t=001597
On life

Life

“The comics medium is a very specialized area of the Arts, home to many rare and talented blooms and flowering imaginations and it breaks my heart to see so many of our best and brightest bowing down to the same market pressures which drive lowest-common-denominator blockbuster movies and television cop shows. Let's see if we can call time on this trend by demanding and creating big, wild comics which stretch our imaginations. Let's make living breathing, sprawling adventures filled with mind-blowing images of things unseen on Earth. Let's make artefacts that are not faux-games or movies but something other, something so rare and strange it might as well be a window into another universe because that's what it is.”

Grant Morrison

2004
https://web.archive.org/web/20040803000924/http://www.popimage.com/content/grant20041.html Popimage interview
On comics

Art , Home , Imagination , Game

“(On DC: One Million) I just read it again and liked it a lot. Comics were definitely happier, breezier and more confident in their own strengths before Hollywood and the Internet turned the business of writing superhero stories into the production of low budget storyboards or, worse, into conformist, fruitless attempts to impress or entertain a small group of people who appear to hate comics and their creators.”

Grant Morrison

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/100831-Morrison-Superman8.html
On comics

Hate , People , Confidence , Business

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