- Dean Cain: I think at the end of the day everyone, they really wanna go on dates with Batman, but they want to live with Superman.
- Narrator: But no matter what conflicts he faced, Superman reflected the same unwavering optimism of his readers. And as the 1960s dawned Superman seemed completely in-tune with a hopeful new decade symbolized by the election of a vigorous young president who promised a future of space exploration and social justice. One Superman comic written in 1963, even suggested a friendship between the American president and the Kryptonian crime-fighter. The comic was set to go to press that November... just as shots rang out in Dallas, Texas. At the age of 46, John F. Kennedy was dead. And his assassination shattered the dreams of a new frontier. Another generation grew disillusioned. Institutions, traditions, convictions all became candidates for radical change. And change they did.
- Self - Musician and Comic Book Fan: The guy down the street wanted to be a football jock. I wanted to save Metropolis.
- [quoted from his guest appearance on "Smallville"]
- Christopher Reeve: You won't find the answers looking at the stars. It's a journey you'll have to take by looking inside yourself. You must write your own destiny.
- [on the beginning of filming "Superman: The Movie"]
- Narrator: When production began at Pinewood Studios in England, two facts became apparent: The film would be the most ambitious comic-book movie ever made. And shooting it would be next to impossible.
- [last lines]
- Annette O'Toole: Strong. Powerful. Invincible. Superman is a hero worth looking up to. And to find him, we need only... look up in the sky.
- Jack Larson: The first time George and I met, I said how good he was in "So Proudly We Hail!" which was a star-making route, and he said, ''Yes. And if the director, Mark Sandrich, who was a mentor to me, hadn't died while I was away in the Army I wouldn't be sitting here in this monkey suit today. '' That's the only time ever I heard him say anything negative about being Superman.
- Self - Musician and Comic Book Fan: It's not the Ubermensch. It's not the Germanic idea of the Superman, the superior man of Nietzsche. This is the greatness of the meek, the mild.
- Self - Comic Book Legend: Superman established the idea of somebody who seems to be a meek, ordinary, average person and is really a superhero. It was a formula that virtually every superhero owes a debt to even today.
- [on his childhood reaction to George Reeves' death]
- Mark Hamill: At that age, you're trying to figure out, you know, death, what does it mean? I didn't know anybody who died. It was... just wrenching beyond belief.
- Narrator: But not everyone loved the Man of Steel. In fact, one outspoken psychiatrist, Dr. Fredric Wertham considered Superman un-American. In his 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent, Wertham waged an incendiary war on comic books and called the Man of Steel a fascist. Wertham was a star witness at the Senate investigation into popular media and its alleged responsibility for juvenile delinquency which was on the rise across America. Wertham's message, echoed by other witnesses, sent shock waves through the anxious comic-book industry and threatened its very existence. Fortunately, Wertham's attack on Superman bounced off the Man of Steel like so many bullets.