I can stand at the back of the theater and watch an audience laugh, cry, and be moved by what I do. I can entertain people around the world. It's nice when you can give someone that gift.

The reality is, to watch Jon Stewart, you already have to have watched the news. In other words, it's not funny if he does a joke about John McCain and they don't know who John McCain is.

Rose:i love you Doctor:Quite right, and i guess if it's my last chance to say it... Rose Tyler... (the doctor fades, him in his TARDIS, with tear tracks and a tear running down his cheek)

My dad did teach me a very important lesson about people when he explained to me that everybody around you will have an invisible sign on their head, which says, "Make me feel important."

I believed in the concept of over-performing. I believe anyone can achieve their goals in life if they over-perform, and that means you have to work ten times harder than anybody you see.

Every time I make a movie I think that it's going to be my last one, I think that no one is going to show up. I always have this sense that they're all going to fail. I am scared to death.

The camera is your way to see what you want to see - it's an extension of the director's fantasy. I'm executing my personal fantasy, whether it's a fantasy of pleasure or of pain and fear.

I think a writer's first job is to entertain, even in novels: to tell a compelling story that pulls the reader along toward an end. At the same time, the best stories are character-driven.

I often tell my clients they should do at least 30 percent of all their reading outside their own field. This will give them perspective and knowledge that will make them more interesting.

I've never wanted my kid faced with the idea of, 'Who's the fat guy sitting in the living room? What the hell is he doing?' I figure I might as well go to work so he can say his dad works.

[David Tennant's] Doctor has such humanity, he seems to understand us and he's very warm, so he's a comforting Doctor to be with, and he enables us to be slightly scarier than we had been.

I don't mind competition at all. I mean, the record business is the most competitive business in the world, probably. So I'm used to that. In a weird way, it kind of makes you work harder.

I'd always thought that 'NYPD Blue' really would open those doors. While I think it created a much broader template for cable, I don't think it really did that much for network television.

I think people want the intimacy in the engagement of sitting in a theater with people and seeing something happen live and engage in that. I think that could be a very powerful experience.

TV is all about learning to write in someone else's voice, so if you do it long enough without selling your own project, they assume you don't have your own voice; you're just a good mimic.

Anybody's position on an issue, anything they've said about an issue, and any way they've voted on an issue is fair game. You have every right to question that and go after it aggressively.

You better be able to defend it after the attack - so don't stretch it. In other words, if the guy's guilty of A and B, don't make him guilty of A, B, and C. That's what a lot of people do.

Reporters may be friendly-but if you get through life without having a reporter as a friend, that may be an advantage. If you insist on having one as a friend, don't do interviews with him.

If somebody wants to book Alec Baldwin on one of our shows, and he wants to come on and talk to our people and say what he wants, I don't care. We would question him on his choice of words.

I have always hated celebrities lecturing people on politics. So forgive me. But I am passionate about this country. I am equally passionate about the potential of the people who live here.

I'm hoping that these series, that originally aired in the 80's and 90's, prove to be as entertaining online and on portable devices as they were when first broadcast on network television.

BBC had tried to develop the book, set in England, as a two-hour movie. I went to a meeting and they said, "Look at this," and I thought the book was outstanding. I was like, "Can I do this?"

One of my favorite things is watching my children learn something new. The combination of innocence and excitement makes a parent feel truly alive, even if only for a second and peripherally.

I come from a family of writers. My mom had been a writer, nonfiction books, and her mother was a playwright in the 1930s and '40s. And my twin brother, Alexi, is a writer on 'The Following.'

Harshness to me is giving somebody false hopes and not following through. That's harsh. Telling some guy or some girl who've got zero talent that they have zero talent actually is a kindness.

I like to know why a video has suddenly gone viral, why a song has broken, why a TV show is suddenly rating out of pattern... I'm pretty good at understanding why things are becoming popular.

The only people with power today are the audience. And that is increasing with Twitter, Facebook, and everything else. We cater to their likes and dislikes, and you ignore that at your peril.

I don't like kids that are pushed into things by stage mums, but when I can see they are having a good time, they're excited and enjoying the process, then I think it's wrong to discriminate.

I'd like to use IMAX. The problem with IMAX is that it's a very loud camera. It's a very unreliable camera. Only so much film can be in the camera. You can't really do intimate scenes with it.

Is love supposed to last throughout all time, or is it like trains changing at random stops? If I loved her, how could I leave her? If I felt that way then, how come I don't feel anything now?

In the TV business, you've got to write fast, and someone will tell you, "Can you rewrite this episode before... 6 p.m.?" So that's when you rewrite it. You can't wait for the muse to show up.

In the TV business, you've got to write fast, and someone will tell you, 'Can you rewrite this episode before... 6 P.M.?' So that's when you rewrite it. You can't wait for the muse to show up.

It's better to grow your employees, steer them into a place that they can learn and succeed, and want to work hard and be loyal, than to have a revolving door of employees. That's demoralizing.

And usually the studios they don't want you to have credit for your movies because they want to take credit for the movies because if you get credit for your movies they've got to pay you more.

I would have loved to have been in the room with the ABC executives when they watched David Lynch's 'Mulholland Drive' TV pilot. You know that had to be a long silence after that thing stopped.

I'm very confident in the management team, very confident in the on-air people. That's the whole secret to everything. It's having people who love to work where they're working and want to win.

I think the worst decision is usually no decision. If you make the wrong decision you can usually course-correct, but if you don't make it, you've already made it, and it's usually the bad one.

What I would argue in my defence is that shows like Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor have actually got people more interested in music again and are sending more people into record stores.

Have I got a black book? Yes, it's called a mobile phone. I do get offers. There is no shortage of people if you want to go on dates - working in TV, living in L.A., it is there if you want it.

You have to start at the very bottom and you've got to do every job. I did that so I could understand what everybody does. I didn't become this huge producer overnight. It took many, many years.

It requires more strength to be gentle, so it's the everyday encounters of life that I think we've prepared children for and prepared them to be good to other people and to consider other people.

When you go to commercial, you want something to call the viewers back, and if you don't have a decent act out, the audience probably won't be there in the numbers you want when the show returns.

When I sold my first book, 'A Conspiracy of Tall Men,' it was part of a two-book deal. It wasn't hugely lucrative, but it was enough money for me to quit the paralegal job I had in San Francisco.

In general, I think man-on-the- street ads and endorsement spots are having less and less effect on people. The electorate's getting very sophisticated, and they want to make their own judgments.

I don't remember threatening anybody, ever. I don't like threats. I don't respond well to them, so I don't give them. But I'm not a doormat. I try to meet the appropriate level of communications.

Like any big company, they've got a brand name, and they've got to keep extending it. Because the reality is, there's not a whole lot of difference between their search (engine) and anyone else's.

I enjoy meeting not only contemporary children, but yesterday's children as well. It's nice to talk about the experiences we shared, they tell me, 'You were a good friend.' That's the warmest part.

I wish I knew what was next. I got this movie without planning to. I'm really excited to be continuing in film because it's a great job but I have my portfolio and resume for any other opportunity.

My favorite TV show of all time is 'The Wire,' which has the feeling of a project-based show. You draw in people from disparate parts of the world, and they have to work together to achieve a goal.

I think America is a hard nut to crack. But once you get a toehold, it's a great place for an entrepreneur because people are so enthusiastic, and you have the most enthusiastic audiences in world.

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