Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I love cable, but not because you can show boobies and say the F-word. I love it because you have more time to think. That's the blessing of it.
What's so great about making television is that it's a collaborative beast. It's created by a great many hands belonging to a great many people.
Years passed and I hadn't really done much writing. Other than the fact that I'm constantly developing new shows, writing up proposals and stuff.
I always said I'm not disappointed with Obama because I voted for him because he was black, and as long as he kept being black, I was a happy man.
Some things are so tragic that you don't know what's funny in it, and some things are so ridiculous you don't know if it's worth talking about it.
The stories from 1975 on are not finished and there is no resolve. I could spend 50 hours on the last 25 years of jazz and still not do it justice.
Have I done more for some today ? Than some have done for me ? If a person can answer yes at the end of a day, then that person has had a good day.
My relationship with the track was, I would say, at least fractionally as complicated as my relationship with my old man. So it kept me coming back.
I feel I'm just meant to do stop-motion. Live-action is much more glamorous to some, but it's basically a whole army of people focused on one thing.
I was taught from a very early age that I had to work twice as hard to get half as much. That was the world I grew up in - a very strong work ethic.
It's often the case with successful TV shows that they kind of inadvertently live on past their prime. It's best to leave the audience wanting more.
I realized early on I was not an actor. And it was a great thing to have that realization. To see actors and see what that talent is... it wasn't me.
I think it's disrespectful to go onto a set without some clear idea of what your intentions are, because then you're hanging the director out to dry.
The environment doesn't change that radically. You are still going to go home at night and NBC is going to be there, ABC and CBS will still be there.
I laugh every day. There are days when my laughs are pretty hollow. Dust comes out of your mouth, and your bones make a funny sound. But I'm laughing.
You have to respect people's suffering. To deny that the world is unfair and painful for most of the people living in it would be false and judgmental.
My female writers have always been my backbone. I had a writing room of six women for five years so I know what women do. Cultivated by me, by the way!
I'm very glad people love 'Breaking Bad,' but the harder character to write is the good character that's as interesting and as engaging as the bad guy.
I experimented with my own one-man show a couple of years ago in Aspen when HBO used to have their comedy festival there. I called it 'A History of Me.'
Like a layer on a pearl, you can't specifically identify the irritant, the moment of the irritant, but at the end of the day, you know you have a pearl.
My future is in Perth, hopefully as a citizen and I want to be an asset to the country as much as I want to be a part of the community and be a citizen.
One of the things about animal rights, which is not the only thing that I care about in this world, is that your money can bring success. I see results.
I am a big PETA supporter, and their East Coast headquarters is the Sam Simon building, and their West Coast headquarters is in the Bob Barker building.
A company has to be like that person who turns his cuffs up a different way, who smokes a certain brand of cigarette, who wears an obscure vintage watch.
We can aspire to anything, but we don't get it just 'cause we want it. I would rather spend my life close to the birds than waste it wishing I had wings.
I have no spy stories to tell, because I saw no spies. Nor did I understand, at that time, any opposition between American and Russian national interest.
The thing that usually gets me through the writing is that my feelings of wretched inadequacy are irregularly punctuated by brief flashes of omnipotence.
When I was a kid, there was kind of a given that there were some really bad, racist police out there. That's just what America was like when I was a kid.
And Michael likes to read a lot. People don't realize that about him but he reads a number of books per week and he's fascinated just about every subject.
Grief is Newark. It's there. Can't avoid it. The idea is to hold your nose, hope the traffic's not too bad and get on to Manhattan as quickly as possible.
I can't focus on any one day, because I always have to be ready for the next. It's fun but frenetic - like living in a circus that never stops performing.
Louis Armstrong is quite simply the most important person in American music. He is to 20th century music (I did not say jazz) what Einstein is to physics.
All writers have a love-hate relationship with writing. Performing is fun, too, but I wouldn't say it's my favorite. But the most fulfilling is producing.
Obviously, my stuff has been more in the comedy realm, and I really believe that if I'm laughing behind the camera, then I think the film will be funnier.
The reason I make movies now has a lot to do with having seen Star Wars when I was seven years old. That's the formative movie-going experience of my life.
I've known John Landgraf for 20 years. He said it perfectly. People will ask if I've seen X. My response has often been, 'Seen it? I've never heard of it.'
Look for the contradictions in every character, especially in your heroes and villains. No one should be what they first seem to be. Surprise the audience.
The second episode of any new show can be tough. You have about a week to top the well-crafted and polished pilot episode that was written over six months.
If I don't have a script I adore, I do one I like. If I don't have one I like, I do one that has an actor I like or that presents some technical challenge.
I would say that if you really wished to be a working member of the community, don't go out on strike because then there's no work and no potential of work.
I was an English major in college, though I ended up getting my degree in "General Stduies" because my grades were too bad to qualify for an English degree.
I've had a bris, was Bar Mitzvahed and, on occasion, have referred to a temple as a shul. I've never denied it, nor have I disguised it. I am, indeed, a Jew.
When you're in the eye of the hurricane, you're making the show - you just want the show to be good, you want it to be appreciated and those types of things.
Having to make a blockbuster every time puts unhealthy pressure on creatives. The pressure on the filmmakers is so intense, I think it stifles the creativity.
If you write about a process you're about to go through, market research, and you go through it, and it doesn't echo what you've written about, you've failed.
Hollywood wanted a certain type of comic - that Def Jam comedy style of comic that was very loud, very brash, very much from the ghetto, had that sensibility.
I was very concerned about helping animals improve their situations. But that was out of love. It wasn't political or out of a belief that animals had rights.
I've imparted that philosophy to the writers, but some of them look stuff up while some don't. Same with the editors, directors and actors. To each their own.
The idea of viewers getting invested in a series is that you're getting invested in the reality of these characters' lives that, in fact, don't have an ending.
When I was working on 'Deadwood', it was understood that the script was a work in progress, and when we got to set, everyone would kind of work on it together.