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.
AARON SORKINWhat’s interesting, is that I’ve found that the more accomplished a director is, the more secure they are in giving direction that sounds incredibly unsophisticated.
More Aaron Sorkin Quotes
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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.
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Toby Zeigler: There’s literally no one in the world I don’t hate right now.
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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.
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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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Josh: So, Toby, it’s election night. What do you say about a country that goes out of its way to protect even those citizens that try to destroy it? Toby: God bless America.
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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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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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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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President 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.
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I’m sick of girls who don’t know how to high-five.
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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.
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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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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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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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Decisions are made by those who show up. Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world.
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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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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 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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Toby: All right. It couldn’t have gone far, right? Sam: No. Toby: Somewhere in this building…is our talent.
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Writers are opposite of athletes, they get better with age
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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.
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When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that’s not going to be me.
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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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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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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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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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