Silver Surfer

"In every part of the globe it is the same! Hatred, fear and unreasoning hostility have possessed men's hearts! But the Silver Surfer will have no part of it!"

"Those to whom no distant horizons beckon ... for whom no challenges remain ... though they have inherited a Universe ... they possess only empty sand!"

"My people have lost the spirit of high adventure ... the thrill of exploration ... the longing to see beyond the veil of knowledge!"

"Let my board and me again become as one! For I must leave this place of madness!"

"Now, I ride the Eternal winds once more! And none shall ever be my master!"

"Paradise unearned is but a land of shadows!"

"Rather let me fail ... than never to have tried at all!"

"My fate is of little consequence ... if it can save the world that gave me birth! Mighty Galactus ... do but spare Zenn-La ... and I am yours.. to command!"

"Where soars the Silver Surfer.... There he must soar ... alone!"

"Time is long and fate is fickle ... My destiny still lies before me! And where it beckons — there shall soar the Silver Surfer!"

"Why... Why must I ever behold the loveliness of Shalla-Bal in every female face I see? Will I never be free of her haunting memory... of her deathless love?"

"Again you substitute force for understanding! Again you would destroy that which you cannot comprehend! ... From cradle to grave — your lives are rooted in senseless violence! Since power is your god — I'll show you power — such as you have never known!"

"If die I must — let it be as I have lived — soaring swift and silent — striving for the right — no matter what the cost!"

"The choice between good and evil — is made by all who live — with every single heartbeat!"

"Unlike the humans, who call you beast, there is no violence in your heart. No hint of avarice, no smoldering hate! Yet man, who has won dominion over all this world, is a stranger to peace — a prisoner, caught in the web of his own nameless fears."

"Even in failure there can be Nobility! But failing to try brings only shame!"

"Henceforth and forever — I am the Silver Surfer! To save our people, I have sworn to serve Galactus!"

"Others may battle with victory in sight — but the Surfer still strives when all hope is gone!"

"To me my board! The time has come to test Galactus anew! To see if his barrier still holds! And if it does, to try again, and again, and again — until I am free!"

"Wheels within wheels! I've been tricked, duped, manipulated! And the real enemy was never Galactus or Dr. Doom — it was — Mephisto, Lord of Evil!"

"You, who once called the Surfer "fool" — did you think mere cackling demons could overcome the Power Cosmic? Though I am less than fallen god, still I am more than mortal!"

"Laugh, Mephisto! Gloat while you may! The evil is yours — but the triumph is mine!"

"Though the one I treasure most of all is forever denied me — though sentenced to endure earthly confinement as a bird endure its cage — still my heart is light. For I have been true to my destiny! I have bested a demon and brought new life to a world! I know not what tomorrow may bring — but today — the Surfer soars!"

"You'll find my power comes from within.... and is a force to be reckoned with."

"Obviously my best strategy is to wait, listen, and learn."

"Completely mad. But perhaps he did have a point. Sure, at the top of his head. Was that a joke?"

"Thanos is like no foe I have ever faced. Perhaps he operates on unheard of spectro levels. There it is!! Amazing. The technologies involved at operating at this level would tax even Galactus's scientific abilities. Yet Thanos roams here freely."

"All over the Universe! I can feel them! They're all dying! Billions upon billions of souls are blinking out of existence! ... Not one knew what struck them! Horrible! I could taste their dread and confusion!"

"If sacred places are spared the ravages of war... then make all places sacred. And if the holy people are to be kept harmless from war... then make all peoples holy."

"What have my actions brought...?"

"The Silver Surfer stands with humankind this day!"

"Drink deep, aged one. For even you must have a limit to the power cosmic you can absorb"

"All that you know is at an end."

"I am not the destroyer."

"Treasure every moment you have with her. Tell her she was right. There is always a choice."

"I will no longer serve. This is the end for us both."

"My conception of the Silver Surfer was a human being from space in that particular form. He came in when everybody began surfing — I read about it in the paper. The kids in California were beginning to surf. I couldn’t do an ordinary teenager surfing so I drew a surfboard with a man from outer space on it."

"I won't let them take another Silver Surfer away from me."

"Herald, prepare yourself!! Prepare to be ... REBORN! At the command of Galactus... you have fallen!! And now... at my command once again... I bid you... RISE!!"

"We were all into Marvel Comics, and the Silver Surfer seemed to be another fantastic singular image. We never got permission to use it. But we liked the image of a silver man, on a silver surfboard, scooting across the universe. It had mystical, mythical properties.... Very cosmic man."

"That wasn't the title track of the album for quite a while. It was going to be called The Lord of Karma. It wasn't until we finished that track and added the jet noises that we realized that "Surfing" was the song that summed up the feeling of the whole album. The whole thing with putting the Silver Surfer on the cover was purely by accident. It came about because the product manager at the record label, Jim Kozlowski, used to be called the Silver Surfer when he was a DJ in Boston. When I delivered the album, he said, "This is a great title. We should put the Silver Surfer on the cover." I had no idea what he was talking about. I literally did not know anything about the comic book character."

"Silver Surfer #1 is a comic worth examining closely. It has a lot of things colliding at once. It's the straw that broke the camel's back in Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's working relationship. The Silver Surfer series is possibly John Buscema's finest moment. It's Stan Lee's first big self-conscious stab at creating something ambitious and meaningful. It's also a good example of what Lee's writing is like when you subtract Kirby or Steve Ditko from the equation. There are some interesting narrative flourishes, but also a leaden storytelling instinct and deep misunderstanding of his own co-creations."

"Stranger in a Strange Land is obviously a touchstone. Can you grok that? Stan Lee is doing his delightfully purple prose thing with "O'er" and "Seeker of truth." The setup in the Fantastic Four comic said that the Surfer was confined to roam the Earth, yearning for the freedom of celestial space and learning what it is to be human. It's a good setup, but it's not set in stone. Why NOT let him roam the universe. Why restrict him? It took until 1987 for that to happen with Marshall Rogers and Steve Engelhart's Silver Surfer relaunch. That was Engelhart's stated purpose, to get the Surfer into space where he belongs."

"We also tried the Silver Surfer for the Dark Side of the Moon. I wanted to use the Silver Surfer because we liked him. I wanted to use him, literally, on one of those huge great rollers in Hawaii, a guy sprayed or body clad in silver. I thought it would be really cool; it would look like a comic character come to life..."

"Perhaps the purest expression of heroism in the face of adversity was Marvel's Silver Surfer. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1965, the Silver Surfer received his own title when Marvel expanded its line in 1968. The notion of a shiny silver being from another planet flying through the cosmos on a surfboard sounds ridiculous, but, in fact, this was an unusually humorless series. ... No matter where he goes or what he does to aid human civilization, he is repaid with fear and animosity. Yet, like a Christ figure sent to save the people of Earth, the Surfer bears his cross and endures his lonely obligation."