Amy Pascale

“If you think that happiness means total peace, you will never be happy. Peace comes from the acceptance of the part of you that can never be at peace. It will always be in conflict. If you accept that, everything gets a lot better,” he said. “To accept duality is to earn identity. And identity is something that you are constantly earning. It is not just who you are. It is a process that you must be active in. It’s not just parroting your parents or the thoughts of your learned teachers. It is now more than ever about understanding yourself so you can become yourself.”
― Amy Pascale, Joss Whedon: The Biography

“Joss’s stories are often centered on moments just like this. He shares a conversation that he had with Stephen Sondheim, in which they were discussing the stories each of them tells. Joss said he was always going to write about adolescent girls with superpowers. Sondheim replied, “And I will always write about yearning.” “Goddammit, his answer was so much cooler than mine!” Joss says— but Sondheim’s answer pushed him to break down his own tales and figure out what his driving impetus was, what he was really writing about. “Helplessness was what I realized was sort of the basic thing,” Joss explains. “All of these empowerment stories come from my fear and hatred of the idea of somebody who is really helpless, who is a non-being.”
― Amy Pascale, Joss Whedon: The Biography