Gunn: "I have a very strong imagination and have since I was a little kid. That is where a lot of my world comes from. It's like I'm off somewhere else. And I can have a problem in life because of that, because I'm always off in some other world thinking about something else. It's constant."

Gunn: "That is who my people are - the oddballs, the rebels, and the geeks. That's what I am, so it's what I naturally feel connected to."

Gunn: "I guess I am an optimist in a pessimist brain, if that makes any sense. I believe in the innate goodness of most people in this world, and yet I'm a damaged soul like many other people and have my own demons and things I struggle with."

Gunn: "One rule of invention: before you can invent it, you have to imagine it."

Gunn: "I feel like I've kinda danced around telling the truest story I can for many years of my life. I've been a little distracted by trying to be shocking or edgy or cool or whatever, and by letting go of that and telling the truest story I can - even if it's about aliens and talking raccoons - it works."

Gunn: "It's impossible not to constantly adjust the way you look at yourself."

Gunn: "The popularity of fantasy surpassing science fiction and the popularity of apocalyptic fiction, particularly for young adults, may indicate a desire to escape a more difficult and confusing reality, even in astrophysics and particle physics."

Gunn: "Movies aren't machines. They interact with our brains."

Gunn: "I've always believed in the power of rational thinking and behavior as the savior of the world, and science fiction as a powerful medium to encourage that, which explains my signature line, 'Let's save the world through science fiction.'"

Gunn: "I don't think through anything I do. I just do it, and it's oftentimes landed me in huge amounts of trouble."

Gunn: "For the theatrical experience to survive, spectacle films need to expand their definition of what they can be. They need to be unique and true voices of the filmmakers behind them. They can't just be copying what came before them."

Gunn: "My life isn't just one genre. It's a romance one minute, an action movie the next - it's actually rarely, rarely an action film, to be frank."

Gunn: "In a way, metafiction breaks down the story and makes it less real. But in another respect, by that very breaking down, it actually makes things feel more real than they would to begin with."

Gunn: "For me, I'm always hard on myself no matter what, so that's always a thing I have to deal with on a daily basis."

Gunn: "I love raccoons. I had a raccoon figurine collection as a kid, and I now have two movies with 'Ranger Rick' jokes in them. I love 'em. They come in my back yard all the time, and we just stare at each other like a couple of idiots."

Gunn: "I've come to trust that what I like is what works."

Gunn: "It's hard making a movie because it's like... you lose your life. I mean, really, I like being alive; I like having friends, going out, watching other people's movies, and all these things I can't do for a year while I make a movie."

Gunn: "I think that one of the things that drives me in telling stories, and art in general, is finding the beautiful in a big mass of ugly."

Gunn: "I always felt restrained by lower-budget films. I enjoyed making them, and I felt fulfilled, but I really did always want to make bigger movies."

Gunn: "I think of the Avengers as The Beatles, and the Guardians are the Rolling Stones. That is really how I feel about the groups."

Gunn: "I'm a huge Howard the Duck fan. For people who don't know, I'm a huge Marvel Comics fan, but Howard the Duck was maybe my favorite character as a kid. I went back, and I collected all of those comics. I had every comic he was ever in."

Gunn: "I was the kid in the neighborhood that was directing everyone else. I was director from the time I was a child."

Gunn: "I know, people have had different things to say about Marvel, about how creatively free they are or not free they are, but for me, the rule has always just been stay as good as I can possibly be, and stay one step ahead of the curve, and stay unique, and stay myself. And they seem to like that."

Gunn: "I love the attention and I hate the attention, you know? It's not always good for your soul."

Gunn: "Let me tell you one thing: there is no more cutthroat place to be than an independent film. Disney is a cakewalk after that - that is no lie."