Marti Noxon Quotes

It’s humiliating, being told you’re not responsible enough to make your own choices in life.

My dad had made a documentary called ‘The Dream Factory’ about MGM, and my whole life, I just wanted to be inside it. And there I was.

I’ve never had as much success as when I say to myself, ‘I get that. I know what the feelings that that character would be going through would be like. I can feel a through line from beginning to end.’

The thing that can happen in a TV room is you can get ‘teamthink’: you can all go down a crazy path together.

I think we’re in a time when people are much more interested in a show than where you find it.

Can’t write worrying what the Internet’s going to think.

I think many people expend a tremendous amount of energy on self-loathing and self-flagellation as well as getting caught in a vicious cycle of dieting and gaining the weight back.

On ‘Sex and The City’, when Carrie talked about money problems, I would always think, ‘Sell your shoes!’

When I was going to get ready to take ‘Dietland’ up, I have to say I was surprised to find that I felt like maybe we wouldn’t find a home for it because it’s unlike anything else that I’ve done.

I think women can relate to the feeling that we’re internalizing too many demands, and we’re trying to be good at everything, but one day, we’re going to snap.

There’s this idea that Hollywood sells over and over again: ‘If I just looked more like this, I’d be accepted.’

Women want to watch the dark stuff.

We did have ‘The Bronze’, a very active website on ‘Buffy’ where we got a lot of feedback and post-game discussion. But now it’s important to be engaged in the discussion while the show is airing and right after.

I’m lucky to be alive. It’s a blessing to tell my story, you know.

You really can’t quantify what ‘Dietland’ is.

It all starts with a very solid, well-executed script, where the story is very clear and everybody is rowing in the same direction. That’s always good; that’s a constant.

Too many people will die needlessly if we go back to letting people buy junk insurance or insurance that doesn’t help people with diseases related to mental illness.

I’ve been looking for a versatile and writer-driven home that could help me bring more complex, exciting, and potentially murderous characters to television – and the team at Skydance is the ideal partner for that.

I’m pretty proud of my pie crust. I think I’ve finally learned how to manhandle it just enough.

The dream of doing what I do started with watching movies by Mr. Spielberg, like ‘Close Encounters,’ ‘Poltergeist,’ and ‘E.T.’ That was the beginning of my obsession.

I can’t be interesting, controversial, and the writer I’d like to be if I need everybody to like me and think I’m doing the right thing, because those two things, in my experience, never go hand in hand.

I think there’s a good-er divorce. I think that’s absolutely possible. There’s a better way to do it and everything in between, and then, of course, there’s the disastrous way to do it.

For me, the interesting thing about anorexia is that you show your wound. There’s no hiding it. So my anger and sense of disappointment, all the stuff I was out of touch with, became this visible rebuke to my parents.

Around 10, I got chubby. I knew I’d crossed a line when the only pants that fit were from the ‘Junior Plenty’ line at JC Penny. My parents had split up, my mom was going through a dark time, and my brother and I were getting bullied in our new neighborhood. Life was big and unsafe.

The best feeling you can ever have when you’re working on a show is that the characters are still inside you, and they have a lot left to do.

The great thing about the story of ‘Twilight’, or the story of ‘I Am Number Four’ is that you get to deal with real issues of identity and what people are going through and the choice of who you’re going to be, but it’s all large.

The truth is there’s a difference between the competition shows where you’re testing skills and the type of shows where you’re trying to create drama.

In ‘UnREAL’, for me, just being so openly feminist, just being so overtly, like, ‘This show is about women who are not necessarily likable, doing a job that is despicable, and we are not going to be afraid of that.’

Eating disorders are A) not fun at parties, and B) they’re not very fun in movies.

I think the science around mental illness is always evolving. There’s always new kinds of thinking.

I thought about being an actor, and I thought about directing, but writing truly became something I needed to do just to stay sane.

The status quo is never happy when things become a meritocracy.

You can’t ever create defensively. You just have to create the next thing that really speaks to you.

I’ve grown and changed, and I’m still making television and movies that I feel really proud of.

It’s funny: I’ve joked that ‘Sharp Objects,’ ‘To the Bone,’ and ‘Dietland’ are my self-harm trilogy, and each one is a different side of that triangle, with ‘Dietland’ really about fighting back.

I was raised by a lesbian feminist who told me that shaving my legs was giving into the patriarchy. So, I consider myself to be a bona fide feminist.

‘Just’ writing is every bit as important as any other creative part of a film.

I’m such a type A doer myself that if someone said I had a month off, I think I’d go crazy and try to organize the vacation resort!

The bane of every TV writer’s existence is the likability note.

You should live hoping you are going to offend people, because then you’re doing something.

If there’s a theme to where I’m at in my life, it’s that ‘warts and all’ is actually my superpower. Just like you, I’m messed up and I’m capable. I’m this and that.

There’s no shape or body type that makes you more happy or more lovable. It’s the body you’re comfortable in that makes you happier and more lovable. I look around and see how women and men of all types find the love and the life they want.

If you made a movie of ‘Sharp Objects,’ chances are that it would be a smaller film, but as a TV show, it can reach a lot of people.

It’s so politically incorrect to make a character gay and then make them ‘un-gay’ again. Like, once you become gay, you’ve crossed over, or you’re not allowed to be a person who doesn’t want to be defined by a label like that.

A great thing, which I don’t do enough, is to take a break from producing and try to just take stuff in, like go to the theater.

I think I’ve also grown a little bit in that I’m not so easily dissuaded if I really believe something.

I’ve watched my fair share of ‘Housewives.’ And I just felt a little dirty afterwards.

It’s interesting because the first batch of really struggling with control and escape and all that happened when I was nearing adolescence, and the second one came with the onset of early menopause.

I’ll be honest: I had a real deep-seated fear that ‘Buffy’ was going to be my peak. It was such a beautiful experience. It was such a fully realized show.

Of all the mental illnesses, anorexia has the highest morbidity rate. It’s serious.

I know a lot about words. I get paid to write stories, so I get to talk with people about the meaning behind words all day.

I’m a huge fan of Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Near Dark.’

I spent some time in Vegas when I was doing some canvassing for Obama back in 2008.

When you work in television, it’s an isolating experience. You rarely ever get to watch it with an audience.

I love being in a public space where teenagers are talking. And the funny thing is that it hasn’t changed that much. There’s certainly slang that I’m not familiar with, but among the average teen, it’s still the same.

Sometimes I say working on a story in a writers’ room is like saying the same word over and over and over again until it doesn’t make sense anymore. Like, you say it until you don’t know what you’re saying.

Not proud. But I watched ‘The Bachelor’ only once, and I really felt, after that experience, that I could never do it again. I felt it was so morally compromising, as a woman.

I digested this value system that told me there was no one for me unless I reached a certain type of perfection. And as you get older, you realize that ideal is constantly changing.

I love characters who are really dedicated to a really bad plan.

I realized all the writing I love lives in the gray area.