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.
AARON SORKINPresident Bartlet: There’s a delegation of cardiologists having their pictures taken in the Blue Room. You wouldn’t think you could find a group of people more arrogant than the fifteen of us, but there they are, right upstairs in the Blue Room.
More Aaron Sorkin Quotes
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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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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’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.
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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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I don’t think I write differently when I’m writing a screenplay, as opposed to a stage play or a teleplay. Maybe if I were in a film class and there was time to think about it, we could point out differences.
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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.
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When I feel that something I’m writing is going well, everything in my life is good and the things in my life that aren’t good are completely manageable. If it’s not going well, Miss America could be standing there in a swimsuit handing me a nobel price and I wouldn’t be happy about it
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Toby: All right. It couldn’t have gone far, right? Sam: No. Toby: Somewhere in this building…is our talent.
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Elite is not a bad word, it’s an aspirational one.
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And a wheat thin the size of Lake Tahoe.
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If you feel that strongly about something, you have an obligation to try and change my mind.
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A hero would die for his country, but he’d much rather live for it.
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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.
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It’s populated by people who, by and large, have terrific communication skills. Every day is an extraordinary day. For me, it was just a great area for storytelling.
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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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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.
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Never argue with a drunk or a fool.
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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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Honestly, I don’t try to guess at what most people want. I don’t think I’d guess right, and I just think that that’s not a good recipe for storytelling. I try to write what I like, what I think my friends would like.
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Decisions are made by those who show up. Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world.
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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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With a television series, there’s a hard deadline, and so you have to write even when you’re not writing well.
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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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When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor. I was acting in all the school plays. I went to school for acting. I was really sure that that’s what I wanted to do.
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We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.
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My preference would have been to not go back on the air after 911, at all until the time felt right but that wasn’t an option.
AARON SORKIN