“Film doesn’t have to worry. Movies are awesome. There’s no war going on, theaters aren’t going to lose.”

Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.

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.

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’m a registered Republican, I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage.

There are television critics, movie critics, and theater critics too who I like and who I follow and I get genuinely bummed when they don’t like something that I’ve written because I usually agree with them.

A hero would die for his country, but he’d much rather live for it.

I don’t believe there are two sides to every argument. I think the facts are the center. And watching the news abandon the facts in favor of “fairness” is what’s troubling to me.

I consider plot a necessary intrusion on what I really want to do, which is write snappy dialogue. But when I’m writing, the way the words sound is as important to me as what they mean.

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.

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.

Just to clarify the division of labor on the show, I write the show and Alan [Poul] does everything else.

Conflict, when used as a device, makes for good television and bad journalism.

There are no Asian movie stars

The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one – America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.

Never argue with a drunk or a fool.

Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I’m going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig.

You learn more discipline in the theatre than you do in movies or TV. You’re on stage every night and you have to sustain your energy level tor several hours.

I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.

I think in the old days, everybody used to act really quickly because Hollywood was built by theatre people.

One of the things I find very difficult about theatre is the repetition – that something can slide away from your original intentions.

I went to the Glasgow Youth Theatre and they just let me in. But I was so shy that I was there for about six weeks without actually introducing myself.

I tried to start a theatre in LA and failed miserably, but I was probably not meant to raise money.

When you come into a movie theatre, there are no windows, you don’t hear the sound outside and you’re ready for fantasy.

I trained as a theatre actor and you had a bare stage and you had to pretend, one prop and you are in the middle of 8th Ave. and traffic is just going by.