The thing I know how to do most is write a play. I came up loving plays and learning about plays and writing plays. I actually feel like an outsider when I’m writing movies and television.
AARON SORKINTrying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.
More Aaron Sorkin Quotes
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I’m a registered Republican, I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage.
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The guy who wins the Oscar for Best Actor has a much higher bar to clear than the woman who wins best actress.
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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.
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The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one – America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.
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My resting pulse as a writer is writing idealistically and romantically; aspirationally. My taste lies in quixotic heroes.
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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.
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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.
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People who don’t know anything tend to make up fake rules, the real rules being considerably more difficult to learn.
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I’ve never met anyone who has said, “My goal is to make America mediocre.” That’s a kind of hard-right conservative fallacy.
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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.
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Film doesn’t have to worry. Movies are awesome. There’s no war going on, theaters aren’t going to lose.
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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.
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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.
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As an audience member, I like the sound of something that’s been written – I like it to sound written. And then, of course, you can’t do it without the musicians who can play it.
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I’ve never met anyone who has said, “My goal is to make America mediocre.” That’s a kind of hard-right conservative fallacy.
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Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I’m going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig.
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There are no Asian movie stars
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There’s a great tradition in storytelling that’s thousands of years old, telling stories about kings and their palaces, and that’s really what I wanted to do.
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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.
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Just to clarify the division of labor on the show, I write the show and Alan [Poul] does everything else.
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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.
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Only criminals and adulterers should have to hide who they are.
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The hardest thing for me is getting started. If I’m writing a script, really 90 per cent of it would be just walking around, climbing the walls, just trying to put the idea together. Then the final 10 per cent would be writing it.
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A news organization has a much different responsibility. I might not be telling you the whole story. I might not be telling you a story in a manner that is properly sophisticated.
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As a dramatist, you’re looking for points of friction.
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The hardest thing for me is getting started. If I’m writing a script, really 90 per cent of it would be just walking around, climbing the walls, just trying to put the idea together. Then the final 10 per cent would be writing it.
AARON SORKIN