The artists who endure are the ones who stay focused even after they have reached the top of their profession.

When someone asks, 'Does success make you into a monster?' I always say, 'No, it enables you to be a monster.'

Bringing back stamp collecting and bringing back bridge seems like a pretty good way to fight the modern world.

We didn't have locks in the early 1940s because nobody got into anybody's house, and nobody did anything wrong.

I've been very successful at selling my things, but I've also been getting up at 4 in the morning for 40 years.

You have to continually and actively watch for the best parts of someone else that will let you experience love.

I did what I did. I went against the grain. And I understand that I would be criticized. Those were all choices.

I hate the idea that I have to represent any particular section of society; I just write good telly, that's all.

Women say hello and then put their hands down my trousers. I thought it was my hand they were supposed to shake.

When there's an authentic mystery, as opposed to just a question being asked, that's what makes you lean forward.

I love the idea of anthropomorphizing machines. I love the idea of taking technology and giving it a personality.

'Saturday Night Live' has always been, you know, non-partisan - whoever's in power should probably be challenged.

I think the part I enjoy most is reading the scripts and screening films because I'm a bookworm and a movie buff.

I try to push ideas away, and the ones that will not leave me alone are the ones that ultimately end up happening.

My center is giving way, my right is pushed back, my left is wavering. The situation is excellent. I shall attack!

I think liberals have a lot of good ideas, actually. But I've been pigeonholed, and I'm quite comfortable with it.

If people love 'TVD' in 20 years the way they still love 'Buffy' today - on its 20th anniversary - I will be happy.

'Originals' is a show that is not about struggling as a vampire but reveling in it. It's about embracing vampirism.

One of the nice things about being busy is it makes you focus on what's important to you and how you use your time.

My mantra is: Realize you're going to fail all the time, and accept it. That doesn't mean I'm not frightened of it.

I hate this phrase, but it's a "can do" attitude [that's important] that, whatever you do in life, you should have.

There are things we can control and the things we can't control. I can't control how people react to the work I do.

Would I like kids? If I knew I could be - and how could I put this delicately - faithful, then yes. I do like kids.

Comic timing... is how to have a relationship with the camera and deal with the camera without looking like you are.

I've just been lucky to work on things that I felt would be cool to see. It's not that I had a strategy or anything.

I think that the success of the film is as much about it being something that families could share as anything else.

Welfare is the basic cause of the deleterious cultural changes we have witnessed in the West over the past 60 years.

In a book you can really talk about ideas and themes and characters in a deeper way than you can even on the screen.

My dad said to me, 'Work hard and be patient.' It was the best advice he ever gave me. You have to put the hours in.

Casting is sort of like looking at paintings. You don't know what you'll like, but you recognize it when you see it.

I'd love to do a movie where the monster is human, where the issue is not otherworldly, or horror or science fiction.

Being a good television screenwriter requires an understanding of the way film accelerates the communication of words.

One of the problems of writing is that anyone who commits themselves to that process has to believe that they're good.

You have to give directors and cinematographers a word blueprint for visuals, but I had to learn that from experience.

'Scream' was the first thing he'd ever written that had gotten made, and I'd been in Hollywood for less than two years.

The job at broadcast is to figure out what the dumbest person in the room is going to think. That's not the case at FX.

Travelers perceptions do not always reflect the reality of a situation, and ignorance is costing the industry billions.

There's a new television generation coming in every five or 10 years, and the classic stories stand up to being redone.

You are worthy of love and respect. You are beautiful, gifted, and intelligent. Don't let the storm make you forget it.

The young people working for me are ambitious and hard-working. That work ethic has always been a trait of the British.

When you're making a movie in 18 days you have to be able to make decisions and have a streamlined reporting structure.

It's very difficult to get your ideas to Hollywood if you're the average Joe or Jane. An agent wouldn't bother with you.

I'm trying to tell a story, to entertain. I try and do something that might just take people's minds off their troubles.

I live in New York, so I'm used to the audiences that cheer and clap through a play. It is unusual for London audiences.

I love working with the right actor, and if the right actor happens to be unknown, that should be allowed, too, I think.

The question for me was, could TV actually teach? I knew it could, because I knew 3-year-olds who sang beer commercials!

America is the most giving nation on Earth. One of the best ways to feel better is by doing something for somebody else.

People do things with terrible motivations and those motivations are selfish and self-interested and financially driven.

I've always been petrified of working for a boss who I didn't like but who I was in fear of, because I wanted my salary.

I couldn't think of anything worse than being in an unhappy marriage. It worries me because I've seen it destroy people.

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