“I’m not trying to create some impression about myself. That doesn’t interest me.”

Eventually, I found a radical way of thinking about listening. Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you.

Working on The West Wing was similar in many ways to my experience on M*A*S*H, because you had people willing to work late at night to get it just right.

My relationship with science is as someone who’s curious and hungry to know, hungry to understand. So all I have to offer is my ignorance and my curiosity, which is a good combination, as long as they come together.

You wouldn’t want to be called a sell-out by selling a product.

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.

Everybody’s on their toes and focused on what we’re about to do, and then there’s this moment where you relax because you see that everybody is there to do the best that they can.

I’ve never tried to manipulate my image.

Really top-notch directors, I’ve often worked with them just to see how they work.

Our lives depend on good communication. Good communication helps personal relationships, it helps bosses and employees get along better. We rely on it.

Don’t ever aim doubt at yourself. Laugh at yourself, but don’t doubt yourself.

All these things you expect meaning to come from, and sometimes it comes when you’re not expecting it.

It isn’t necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It’s only necessary to be rich.

For me, I find that even though I’ve accomplished a few things in my life, looking back on accomplishments doesn’t give me a sense of satisfaction.

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won’t come in. If you challenge your own, you won’t be so quick to accept the unchallenged assumptions of others.

When I’m writing, I want to try to be seen as a good writer.

artists try to say things that can’t be said. in a fragile net of words, gestures, or colors, we hope to capture a feeling.

I think there’s a sort of, you know, very thin way of reading this that says, well, Barack Obama is biracial thus that gives him some understanding of both white America and black America, but that’s not really it.

All people are struggling to be creative in some way, and the artist is the one who has succeeded in this task of life.

Some of the record company people, they wouldn’t let me put this out, … They said it would be too controversial. But this picture is saying ‘Look, they can stand together. Don’t have to be no fight.’

I had some money, I made the best paintings ever.

Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing.

These movies are like my kids. I just love them to death. Some of them go to Harvard and some of them can barely graduate high school.

You can’t please everybody. You’d be crazy if you’re trying to. So take some time out to do some things for yourself.

Honesty pays, but it doesn’t seem to pay enough to suit some people.