“It’s a rough and tumble game whenever power is involved – people’s ambitions, their desires, their competitive spirit will often push them to play outside the rules. It’s dramatic, it’s interesting, and I think it’s something we can all identify with to a degree.”

And they all have something to offer and making the story better and bringing their vision to what you see in the frame.

I don’t think that Washington is a fundamentally bad or corrupt place.

I refuse to buy a PS3 or Xbox for my home for fear that it might ruin my life.

In politics, it’s very theatrical. There’s a lot of stage craft. The campaign is trying to tell a story that they want people to believe in, and candidates are playing the role, like actors, by a creative personae that people will be attracted to.

Film is much more visual, a scene is typically a lot shorter, you’re dealing with a lot more characters.

The checks and balances is a way to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or an autocratic mob mentality.

If you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll have a better life than your parents did, and your children will have a better life than you did.

In Washington, if you’re a congressman or a senator or the President, you make much more money than the average American, but you’d think that if you were the leader of the free world you’d be making major bank, and you don’t.

I think I would cease to accomplish anything productive, would quickly dispense with all human contact, and would very well end up with a nasty case of arthritis in my over-used digits from constant gameplay.

My jobs on campaigns were pretty low on the totem pole – I was an advance man.

At home I mostly stick to online Scrabble, or chess or Risk – games I find far less addictive than the spectacular games created for consoles these days. But, whenever I get the chance I head over to my friend Kyri’s house to play his PS3.

Every director is different. One of the great things about getting to work with so many directors in one TV series is collaborating with different artistic visions and voices.

In the best possible scenario, whenever you get notes from people, they’re good notes, and they see things that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise, and they make you a better writer.

You just have to re-wire your brain when you’re shifting from the stage to the screen, or the silver screen or the HD flat screen.

We all experience power struggles in our lives – at the workplace, with our friends, in our love lives. In a way, we’re all politicians.

When you have both parties who will not find ways to compromise, who won’t meet in the middle, you have paralysis. It’s the perversion of idealism.

I usually never stay at the board after a game. Especially against Spassky. I made a dumb suggestion and he refuted it instantly! I know I’m going to have to play him some day and it was really stupid to look like such a jerk in front of him.

Karpov, Kasparov, Korchnoi have absolutely destroyed chess by their immoral, unethical, prearranged games.

I once heard that Paul Seymour said as much as winning an NBA Championship, he’d like to see the Celtics lose a game after Auerbach brought out the cigar so he could go up to Arnold and stuff the cigar in his face.

The NBA wasn’t a big deal at that time, so it wasn’t really in my career plans.

We know about the Detroit offense with Calvin Johnson, the best receiver in the game. If this defense continues to play at this pace, they may have something to say about the NFC North.

Why talk now when so many things have been said without ever giving me a chance to talk?

I’ve never predicted anything. All I have ever said is, that we will do the very best we can.

The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game.