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Wit & Attitude Quote by J. Michael Straczynski

"My philosophy: find what it is you want to say, walk in the room, say it, and get the hell out"

About this Quote

Efficiency here isn’t just a productivity tip; it’s a worldview forged in rooms where time is money, attention is scarce, and the loudest voice often wins by attrition. J. Michael Straczynski’s line reads like a producer’s survival mantra, but it’s also a quiet rebuke of a culture that confuses duration with depth. “Find what it is you want to say” puts intention first: the work happens before the meeting, before the pitch, before the performance. The sentence is a miniature workflow for creative authority.

Then comes the choreography: “walk in the room, say it.” No hedging, no throat-clearing, no pre-apologies. In Hollywood and television especially, where ideas get diluted in committee and every note breeds three more notes, clarity is a power move. It implies you respect other people’s time because you respect your own.

The punchline - “get the hell out” - is the part with teeth. It’s funny, sure, but it’s also defensive. Don’t linger long enough for the room to talk you out of your own point. Don’t let consensus sand down the edges. Straczynski, a writer-producer known for strong authorial vision in a collaborative medium, is signaling an ethic: get in, deliver the payload, exit before the gravitational pull of politics, second-guessing, and performative debate takes over.

It’s less anti-collaboration than anti-noise. The subtext is that the real enemy of good work isn’t disagreement; it’s entropy.

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TopicWisdom
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Straczynski, J. Michael. (2026, January 16). My philosophy: find what it is you want to say, walk in the room, say it, and get the hell out. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-philosophy-find-what-it-is-you-want-to-say-92020/

Chicago Style
Straczynski, J. Michael. "My philosophy: find what it is you want to say, walk in the room, say it, and get the hell out." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-philosophy-find-what-it-is-you-want-to-say-92020/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My philosophy: find what it is you want to say, walk in the room, say it, and get the hell out." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-philosophy-find-what-it-is-you-want-to-say-92020/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.

Say It and Leave: Straczynski on Clarity and Brevity
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About the Author

J. Michael Straczynski

J. Michael Straczynski (born July 17, 1954) is a Producer from USA.

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