Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Everybody knows things are not the same. The people running the TV end of a major vertically integrated company know how much money a successful show can make.
Nobody does animation better than Disney; it's just that some of us wanted out of the box. Burton was one. I was another. We were the mutual complaint society.
I came to 20th Century Fox to do movies, and then they started a network, and they asked me to do a show as part of their starting what became the Fox network.
The threat to free television. The reason television is free is because it is a life support system for commercials. That fundamental aspect is about to change.
I get bored with establishing shots of people getting out of cars and walking into buildings, getting into elevators and then 45 seconds later they have a line.
I was only in college, unfortunately, for, um, a year. I think my major was public relations, and I had no idea what it meant except it seemed maybe attainable.
You know, it's hard as a writer to lose characters (and actors) you like. You really don't want them to die because you're not going to get to see them anymore.
There's no reason to do 'ex and the City' if it's not going to be everything 'Sex and the City' is, which is vibrant emotions, comedy, drama... and also, style.
There are two ways of knowing if something ends badly: If you're honest with yourself, you just kind of know it. And then there's other people's reaction to it.
One of the missions of 'The Nightly Show' was to have a conversation with America in a sense, and talk about the things that people didn't want to talk about it.
My background is in math and science, and I thrive on complexity, and I think lots of people do. People love puzzles; it's human nature to want to solve puzzles.
I really enjoy women and I totally understand and applaud the diversity that they have in terms of their emotions and intellects and vulnerability and strengths.
To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.
If you look at somebody like Sam Bee, she got to create her own thing without any expectations that there was a show there. That was probably liberating for them.
Everyone is saying, "How is it with Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez?" and I say, "You're forgetting the third star." And they're like, "The car?" It's totally a star.
To think in terms of what the effect of a story is going to be, as opposed to trying to discover its inner logic, is one of the fundamental dangers in the process.
It was tough when people would say, "Aren't you so excited?" about the new show and I couldn't really say, "Yes, well, I'm going through a divorce right now, too."
Whenever I did sitcoms, that always happened on your show. Once the show was on the air, it takes on a life of its own. It develops, and it becomes something else.
To create a situation where each new episode has to start in the exact same place as the previous one, with the actors' hair in the exact same place, seemed crazy.
I find that the creative side of my brain and the archival side of my brain don't work well together. When I've done my best work, I've been in a trance-like state.
I learned my lesson that in the live-action world, you have to earn the support of people over a very, very long time. And in animation, I already have the support.
[Making meth] is a complex process. The truth of it is that we live in a post-Google world where you can find six recipes for meth in 30 seconds on a search engine.
My philosophy is making a movie is difficult enough and I just feel as if you should have a really good time when you do make films whether it's a drama or a comedy.
I try to do the story the way I feel the story should be done, and how that folds into whatever larger sorts of categories or questions is really none of my business.
The agendas on the management side of the table now are not in sync like they used to be because you have vastly different entities supplying programming to networks.
I won't go back to the theater. I like some of the things they're doing but it's different now, not something I could do. I'll go on making films the rest of my life.
Remember, MTV would only show white videos for a long time. Can you imagine that? That was the '80s when that happened. It's hard to even think of that now, you know?
I had no intention of being a film producer, and I knew I wasn't passionate about engineering. I was always set on having my own business, controlling my own destiny.
A lot of young writers are very precious about their words. Don't be - you've got to be ready to burn stuff. You're not as good as you think you are, at least not yet.
I’ve always thought that each person invented himself… that we are each a figment of our own imagination. And some people have a greater ability to imagine than others.
I know he was definitely beaten by her. I saw it many times. But we had a different way of dealing with her. He'd let her have more and more booze until she passed out.
It almost seems like God is transforming into just a strictly spiritual advisor, a personal-transformation type of figure more than an explainer of the world, you know?
My father was in law enforcement growing up. He was a probation officer. And I've always understood the point of view of the peace officer, you know, because of my dad.
The sad truth is, there's more Walter White in me than I'd care to admit, because if I truly was as kind as people think I am, I wouldn't be able to write Walter White.
I could never do a show, or be a personality like Howard Stern, where you take all that heat from critics. What he does, he does, but the critical heat would crucify me.
I don't think you can really make television based on what you think audiences want. You can only make stories that you like, because you have to watch it so many times.
No one's ever going to make a PG-13 animated film unless David Fincher executive produces it and puts it out on Netflix, and then if it's a success everyone will change.
I have made all my films for my children with the exception of my first film because my oldest daughter wasn't born when I was making the film about the Brooklyn Bridge.
I originally started redoing houses to deal with stress. I found that the hour I could go to a job site every day took my mind off the 24/7 of thinking about my clients.
Our rational, realistic goals for 'Better Call Saul' were simply that it wouldn't suck, and it wouldn't embarrass us. It didn't rise much higher than that, to be honest.
Writers are born, not made. We can hone the craft. We need to try to encourage someone and make a dialogue, suggesting ways to do something differently or how to improve.
Commercials were once TV's version of the church. Which is to say, you couldn't offend the sponsor; therefore, certain values had to be underscored in the subject matter.
I wouldn't go up on a stage now if you paid a thousand dollars for one minute of acting. It's a nasty experience. You're up there all by yourself. You're so damn exposed.
There is a production and distribution pact, so they help with the production financing and take international territories and do international distribution and marketing.
You have this disturbing reality that there are a lot of people who would rather say, 'I'm on strike' than 'I'm unemployed.' And those are the people who vote for strikes.
I was both very successful and very left; the living demonstration of how you could be on the left and still be in the gossip columns and be envied for the money you made.
Wynton told us that Miles sold out, just wanted to make more money, just wanted to sell more records. I don't believe that Miles sold out but I'm not in a position to say.
When I was a kid, my parents never let me use race as an excuse. They'd say, 'When you walk into a room and it's all white, those kids have to work to stand out, not you.'
In terms of how I understand the online world, it doesn't just work in the old-fashioned way. You're not going to see billboards and a bunch of commercials. It's all viral.
So much of what we do is shame-based, and when you're teaching, you have the opportunity to answer to the best parts of your nature, so I'm always grateful for that chance.