I own some bugs encased in lucite or something. I also have a big cat's eye - a fake one - made for a taxidermist. I really like animals.

I write out of enthusiasm. Momentum that comes from a new idea. Eagerness to explore. I also write out of fear - fear of losing an idea - fear of feeling stagnant.

I feel like having an actual taxidermy-ed mammal would get gross, like its hair would get dirty and stuff.

I was tired of working in an office and I wanted to make a living telling stories. There are not many people who find a way to do this.

Sometimes I try to meditate, which I hope will help, but it doesn't really. But lots of times my dreams have the seed of an intriguing story.

Horror is so basic. You'd get an adrenaline jolt from watching your mom get gored by a woolly mammoth. A horror movie gives you the adrenaline without having to have your mom get gored.

I love horror movies. I consider myself a horror author, sometimes.

Fiction and screenwriting blend for me. I feel like being a TV writer/screenwriter has definitely made my fiction writing better, although I have less time to do it.

The Shield made me realize there were great opportunities for writers in TV.

We're lucky to be in the middle of a TV renaissance. It's the healthiest storytelling medium in our culture.

Yeah, most guys don't like to think about going to a bar with a girlfriend and watching her leave with someone else.

She was a sleuth and sleuths had to follow rules. ‘Get to the point

I consider myself to have a decent sense of humor. What's life without a sense of humor?

My biggest problem in the big leagues is that I can't figure out how to spend forty-three dollars in meal money.

As an African American child growing up in the segregated South, I was told, one way or another, almost every day of my life, that I wasn't as good as a white child.

You've got a lot going for you, you see. By just describing well with it, something happens.

The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence. No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now.

We all have so many different elements inside of us and we're not all one thing.

I never tire of the heroes that I knew growing up.

I think that social media can be used for good and for bad.

The world's oldest wisdom: each evil thought infuses the mind, sooner or later, with an unholy fear.