You don’t need to have powers to be a superhero. Sometimes, you might just need to read up on the inspirational Stan Lee quotes. He is, after all, the person that created the majority of Marvel superheroes we have come to know and love.
The Stan Lee catchphrase proves that he is, more or less, a superhero. Excelsior! A phrase that is full of positivity. This single word joins the ranks with other inspirational quotes that are as legendary as the person himself.
The same positivity can also be seen in numerous Marvel quotes. Since Stan Lee was the person that created the majority of the franchise characters, it's easy to assume that he also helped shape the dialogue. Thus, expanding the arsenal of phrases Stan Lee has.
If you are looking for a way to awaken the superhero inside you, quotes from Stan Lee are here to help you do so. Make sure to upvote the phrases that you liked the most. Also, comment down below if you have anything to share about this real-life superhero.
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"I don't have inspiration. I only have ideas. Ideas and deadlines."
Creativity is like water. It flows all over the place until someone sticks it the freezer.
How Did Stan Lee’s comic book career start?
Before becoming the face of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee had to rise through the ranks to discover his true potential. Born in 1922, Lee started his comic book career with Timely Comics, a family-owned business. When World War II came to America, he worked in the US Army 1st Motion Picture Unit and produced training manuals, videos, and cartoons. Even during this period, Lee would send some work to Timely Comics.
"Achilles, without his heel, you wouldn't even know his name today."
Why is Stan Lee so popular?
Today, Stan Lee seems as popular as the characters he helped create. The source of his almost infinite fame comes from two sources — his work as a writer in Marvel Comics and the cameos he had in multiple movies. Taking a look at the cameo part of his popularity, he appeared in the majority of Marvel movies. Lee is also one of the highest-grossing people in Hollywood, with a combined box office of over $30 billion.
Was Stan Lee CEO of Marvel?
Sadly, Stan Lee didn’t hold the CEO position in the company. However, he was one of the most important creatives in the company. Lee worked for Marvel when they were still known as Timely Comics and tried to expand the brand. With the help of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko (for the most part), he created superheroes like Ant-Man, Wasp, and Daredevil.
"For years, kids have been asking me what's the greatest superpower. I always say luck. If you're lucky, everything works. I've been lucky."
How did Stan Lee help expand the Marvel brand?
Marvel didn’t become a media conglomerate overnight. Besides the characters he created, Stan Lee also served as a creative executive, guiding the company along with his other colleagues. Through his work, he challenged the Comics Code Authority, changed some of the policies in the process, and helped push Marvel into more forms of media. However, his efforts produced mixed results. Even after his retirement in the ‘90s, Stan Lee stayed with the company through several cameos.
"The only advice anybody can give is if you want to be a writer, keep writing. And read all you can, read everything."
"If you're writing about a character, if he's a powerful character, unless you give him vulnerability I don't think he'll be as interesting to the reader."
"Singing a song, playing sports–anything that entertains, that takes people away from their own problems, is good."
"To me, writing is fun. It doesn’t matter what you’re writing, as long as you can tell a story."
"Just because you have superpowers, that doesn't mean your love life would be perfect. I don't think superpowers automatically means there won't be any personality problems, family problems, or even money problems. I just tried to write characters who are human beings who also have superpowers."
"I never thought that Spider-Man would become the worldwide icon that he is. I just hoped the books would sell and I’d keep my job."
"I think people have always loved things that are bigger than life, things that are imaginative."
"Comics are stories; they’re like novels or anything else. So the first thing you have to do is become a good storyteller."
"If there are people who like the work you’ve done, [and] because of that, they like you and want your autograph and to take a photo, that’s really gratifying. You have to be appreciative."
"Every day is a new adventure. You can’t run out of ideas. You look at anything, you get an idea. I look at that telephone. If I look at it long enough I’ll think of a story."
"It’s a good reminder to always stay humble and do what we love every day; success will always come."
"When I was a kid, Disney was one of my Gods. I just loved movies like 'Snow White' and 'Pinocchio.'"
"I don’t think you ever outgrow your love for things that are bigger than life and more colorful than the average life."
"Wolverine is one of the best characters ever created in fiction. I blew it by not coming up with the idea first."
"Spider-Man came about after seeing a fly crawl up a wall. Somehow calling him 'flyman' didn't sound dramatic enough. What else could he be? Mosquito man? Then I said: Spider-Man. And it sounded so dramatic."
"I've been the luckiest man in the world because I've had friends, and to have the right friends is everything: people you can depend on, people who tell you the truth if you ask something."
"I have always included minority characters in my stories, often as heroes. We live in a diverse society—in fact, a diverse world, and we must learn to live in peace and with respect for each other."
"If I'm half as good as everybody said I am, I'm far too good to be wasting time with ordinary people. But I seem to be spending my life with ordinary people, who are the best people in the world."
"I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realize: Entertainment is one of the most important things in people's lives. Without it, they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you’re able to entertain people, you’re doing a good thing."
"All I thought about when I wrote my stories was, 'I hope that these comic books would sell so I can keep my job and continue to pay the rent.' Never in a million years could I have imagined that it would turn into what it has evolved into nowadays."
"For men must never feel a cause is hopeless–men must never feel an enemy cannot be beaten!”
"Let's lay it right on the line. Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today. But, unlike a team of costumed super-villains, they can’t be halted with a punch in the snoot, or a zap from a ray gun. The only way to destroy them is to expose them—to reveal them for the insidious evils they really are."
"The pleasure of reading a story and wondering what will come next for the hero is a pleasure that has lasted for centuries and, I think, will always be with us."
"It’s a lot of work, but if you really have it in you, it’s not like work. It becomes fun."
"When you work with people whom you like and you admire because they’re so good at what they do, it doesn’t feel like work. It’s like you’re playing."
"I suppose I have come to realize that entertainment is not easily dismissed. Beyond the meaning (of a work of art), it is important to people. Without it, lives can be dull."
"While no one is expected to leap tall buildings in a single bound, our aspiring heroes will be tested on their courage, integrity, self-sacrifice, compassion, and resourcefulness–the stuff of all true superheroes."
"If Shakespeare and Michelangelo were alive today, and if they decided to collaborate on a comic, Shakespeare would write the script and Michelangelo would draw it. How could anybody say that this wouldn't be as worthwhile an artform as anything on earth?"
"Technology isn't a villain. Technology should help, but if you just use the technology for the sake of technology, then you're cheating your audience. You're not giving them the best story and the best direction and so forth."
"I had been writing comic books for years and I was doing them to please a publisher, who felt that comics are only read by very young children or stupid adults. And therefore, we have to keep the stories very simplistic. And that was the thing I hated."
"I like Spider-Man because he's become the most famous. He's the one who's most like me–nothing ever turns out 100 percent OK; he's got a lot of problems, and he does things wrong, and I can relate to that."
"My theory about why people like superheroes is that when we were kids, we all loved to read fairy tales. Fairy tales are all about things bigger than life: giants, witches, trolls, dinosaurs and dragons and all sorts of imaginative things. Then you get a little bit older and you stop reading fairy tales, but you don't ever outgrow your love of them."
"So I'm happiest when I'm working with artists and writers, and involved in stories, whether we're talking about animation or movies or comics or television."
"The thing to me that's fun is trying to make the characters seem believable, or realistic. And it's especially challenging when you're doing fantasy stories, when you're doing superhero types of things."
"We're living in a world where everything moves very quickly. We've become a very visual society, so I think it's a very natural thing that people are captivated with the illustrations in a story."
"I was stupid in a business way. I should have been greedier."
"The whole underlying principle of the X-Men was to try to be an anti-bigotry story to show there’s good in every person."
"To my way of thinking, whether it’s a superhero movie or a romance or a comedy or whatever, the most important thing is you’ve got to care about the characters. You’ve got to understand the characters, and you’ve got to be interested. If the characters are interesting, you’re halfway home."
"The thing to me that’s fun is trying to make the characters seem believable, or realistic. And it’s especially challenging when you’re doing fantasy stories, when you’re doing superhero types of things."
"I like Silver Surfer because he’s the most philosophical, always philosophizing about the human race and the human condition and why people are the way they are, why they don’t appreciate this wonderful planet they live on… he has a nice moral tone."
"I’m sort of a pressure writer. If somebody says, ‘Stan, write something,’ and I have to have it by tomorrow morning, I’ll just sit down and I’ll write it. It always seems to come to me. But I’m better doing a rushed job because if it isn’t something that’s due quickly, I won’t work on it until it becomes almost an emergency and then I’ll do it."
"What did Doctor Doom really want? He wanted to rule the world. Now, think about this. You could walk across the street against a traffic light and get a summons for jaywalking, but you could walk up to a police officer and say 'I want to rule the world,' and there’s nothing he can do about it, that is not a crime. Anybody can want to rule the world. So, even though he was the Fantastic Four’s greatest menace, in my mind, he was never a criminal!"
"America is made of different races and different religions, but we're all co-travelers on the spaceship Earth and must respect and help each other along the way."
"Another definition of a hero is someone who is concerned about other people’s well-being and will go out of his or her way to help them–even if there is no chance of a reward. That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero.”
"I don’t analyze things too closely. I find the more you analyze, the more you get away from spontaneity."
"Some people will say, ‘Why read a comic book? It stifles the imagination. If you read a novel you imagine what people are like. If you read a comic, it’s showing you.’ The only answer I can give is, 'You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn’t want to see it on the stage?'"
"You know, my motto is ‘Excelsior.’ That’s an old word that means ‘upward and onward to greater glory.’ It’s on the seal of the state of New York. Keep moving forward, and if it’s time to go, it’s time. Nothing lasts forever."
"If I'm half as good as everybody said I am, I'm far too good to be wasting time with ordinary people. But I seem to be spending my life with ordinary people, who are the best people in the world."
"I’ve been very lucky. All I wanted was to pay the rent. Then these characters took off and suddenly there were Hulk coffee mugs and Iron Man lunchboxes and The Avengers sweatshirts everywhere. Money’s okay, but what I really like is working."
"I grew up in New York City during the Depression. My earliest recollections were of my parents talking about what they would do if they didn’t have the rent money."
"I realized that people had no respect for comic books at all. Most parents didn't want their children to read comics. And I was a little embarrassed to be doing the work I did, and I figured someday I'll write the Great American Novel, and I don't want to ruin my possibilities by having my name disliked this way. And I became Stan Lee."
"Some people will say, 'Why read a comic book? It stifles the imagination. If you read a novel you imagine what people are like. If you read a comic, it's showing you.' The only answer I can give is, 'You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn't want to see it on the stage?'"
"When you work with people whom you like and you admire because they’re so good at what they do, it doesn’t feel like work. It’s like you’re playing."
