The stuff that I write doesn’t work very well as background music. You have to watch it from beginning to end and pay attention as if you were watching a play.
AARON SORKINThe stuff that I write doesn’t work very well as background music. You have to watch it from beginning to end and pay attention as if you were watching a play.
AARON SORKINTo use a basketball metaphor, West Wing cast was a group that liked to pass as much as they liked to shoot.
AARON SORKINElite is not a bad word, it’s an aspirational one.
AARON SORKINWriting 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.
AARON SORKINOnly criminals and adulterers should have to hide who they are.
AARON SORKINToby: All right. It couldn’t have gone far, right? Sam: No. Toby: Somewhere in this building…is our talent.
AARON SORKINI’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.
AARON SORKINThe first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one – America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.
AARON SORKINI want to convey that I’m crazy about the Kardashians – but I’m not sure which is which.
AARON SORKINIt’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.
AARON SORKINConflict, when used as a device, makes for good television and bad journalism.
AARON SORKINToby: All right. It couldn’t have gone far, right? Sam: No. Toby: Somewhere in this building…is our talent.
AARON SORKINIf you can socialize from the privacy of your desk at night in a dark room, you can be a smoother, cooler, funnier, sexy, more everything person than you actually are in real life.
AARON SORKINAny 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 SORKINI’ve never met anyone who has said, “My goal is to make America mediocre.” That’s a kind of hard-right conservative fallacy.
AARON SORKINThat’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.
AARON SORKIN