Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
With a television series, there's a hard deadline, and so you have to write even when you're not writing well.
If I get an idea for a series that I really like, I'm sure I won't be able to resist coming back and doing it.
Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks.
If you lined up 10 writers and asked them to write a movie about Steve Jobs, you'd get 10 very different movies.
The upside of web-based journalism is that everybody gets a chance. The downside is that everybody gets a chance.
Don't ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world, it's the only thing that ever has.
Writing never comes easy. The difference between Page 2 and Page Nothing is the difference between life and death.
I'm not interested in the difference between good and bad, I'm interested in the differences between good and great.
People who don't know anything tend to make up fake rules, the real rules being considerably more difficult to learn.
It seems to me that more and more we've come to expect less and less from each other, and I think that should change.
Television is a visual medium. You have to create some kind of visual interest. And it's entertainment for your eyes.
The rules of drama are very much separate from the properties of life. I think that's especially true of Shakespeare.
Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I'm going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig.
Everything can be going well, but if I'm not writing, I'm not happy. When I'm writing well, I'm like a different person.
The real problem with all drugs is that they work. Fantastically. They're great, right up until the moment they kill you.
My resting pulse as a writer is writing idealistically and romantically; aspirationally. My taste lies in quixotic heroes.
That's a very real feeling - that I don't have a story to tell. I'm not a pure storyteller. I have a tough time with story.
I've never met anyone who has said, "My goal is to make America mediocre." That's a kind of hard-right conservative fallacy.
The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one - America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.
Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep can play with the boys but there just aren't that many tour-de-force roles out there for women.
Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.
Stupid people surround themselves with smart people. Smart people surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them.
My preference would have been to not go back on the air after 9\11, at all until the time felt right but that wasn't an option.
Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.
I am all for everyone having a voice; I just don't think everyone has earned the microphone. And that's what the Internet has done.
Writing anything, it sorta starts the way you'd build a castle at the beach. You're just taking your hands and you're mounting up sand.
While I was doing 'The Newsroom,' I always had the news on on different networks on different TVs around my house and around my office.
It's important to remember that, first and foremost, if not only, this is entertainment. 'The West Wing' isn't meant to be good for you.
Government should be a place where people can come together, and no one gets left behind. No one…gets left behind. An instrument of good.
As long as you keep one foot in the real world while the other foot's in a fairy tale, that fairy tale is going to seem kind of attainable.
Any time you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written. That's what I look for.
I desperately need the love of complete strangers. That's one reason I overtip. I love when skycaps, waiters, and valets are happy to see me.
I'm a registered Republican, I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage.
I grew up in the theatre. It's where I got my start. Writing a television drama with theatrical dialogue about the theatre is beyond perfection.
I have a lot of respect for people who are great at ad-libbing, and for writers and directors who are able to create a scene in which that works.
The downside to series television is that the schedule is ferocious. It constantly feels like you have a midterm due that you haven't started yet.
I would love for people to think that I am as quick, clever, smart and heroic as the characters that I write, but those characters are characters.
If the characters on 'The West Wing' were watching a TV show wherein a character like Trump was leading in the polls, they wouldn't find it believable.
I like workplace shows and White House was a very glamorous workplace to set a show in; it appealed to a sense of romanticism and idealism that I have.
Well, I must tell you I write the scripts very close to the bone. So I'm writing episode seven now and couldn't tell you what happens in episode eight.
Heroes in drama are people who try hard to reach a virtuous ideal. And whether they succeed or fail really doesn't matter - it's the trying that counts.
Certainly, last year we did an episode about the census and sampling versus a direct statistic. You just said the word 'census,' and people fall asleep.
Certainly, last year we did an episode about the census and sampling versus a direct statistic. You just said the word 'census', and people fall asleep.
You're going to fall down, but the world doesn't care how many times you fall down, as long as it's one fewer than the numbers of times you get back up.
If I am writing a movie and I am stuck, I can call the studio and tell them it's delayed. You can't do that with television - you have air dates to meet.
I'm terribly afraid of failure. When your identity is wrapped up in writing and you've written something that doesn't work, it's a tough pill to swallow.
I've always thought that there is a great female James Bond movie to be done. I'm not literally calling her Jane Bond, I mean, but a female secret agent.
I can't remember my dreams more than a couple of seconds after I wake up. It's frustrating because sometimes I dream that I'm watching a really good movie.
I get nervous before openings or premieres or when someone's reading a new script, and I get nervous when my daughter isn't in my immediate field of vision.
I'll get cast occasionally as sort of the jerk version of myself, and I have fun doing that. But it's really better for everyone if I stay behind the camera.