Networks don't want a show with a continuing story. There's no backend potential.

Even though shows like NYPD Blue are soaps in my opinion, but they're individualized to an extent that you can still follow what's going on if you miss a week.

Ultimately the Emmys are a popularity contest.

The West Wing seems to be feeding the myth about how presidential politics are.

A show like Knots or any other show that can be called a soap opera does terribly in syndication because if you're a viewer and you miss a week you don't know what's going on.

It worked well because Don Murray didn't want to be on Knots anymore.

Clint Eastwood is aging beautifully. But someone like Burt Reynolds and others are practically destroying their faces in the amount of work they have.

The business is built on slowing or even stopping the aging process.

I try to watch only real things, which basically amounts to C-Span for me. I like real people in real situations. I learn from that.

If you watch Cheers, in 12 years they didn't age a day.

I'm an Irish-American, and I grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood.

If your mother cooks Italian food, why should you go to a restaurant?

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

I love the conversation between film and music.

The hardest thing to open is a closed mind.

A teacher's job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded.

It's hard to represent chaos, or like an absence of something. It's much easier to represent the presence of something or a situation.

I used to like doing school plays.

A Grammy is a wonderful thing; all of a sudden you're given a new audience but, like anything, you have to be able to grow with these songs if you really want a long artistic career.

For me, there's still plenty of ground to be covered, as I get older. It's worked out great so far. I take it one job at a time. I'll just keep my eyes toward the next job and see where it takes me.

I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me.