Stupid people surround themselves with smart people. Smart people surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them.

It's nice that HBO is in business with the audience and not with the advertisers. There's a difference.

You're going to fall down, but the world doesn't care how many times you fall down, as long as it's one fewer than the numbers of times you get back up.

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

An artist’s job is to captivate… if we stumble into truth, we got lucky.

Rule of storytelling: When a character is shoved against a wall, shove them against a wall harder.

A friend is somebody who says the same things to your face that they would say if you're not in the room.

Certainly, last year we did an episode about the census and sampling versus a direct statistic. You just said the word 'census', and people fall asleep.

Socializing on the internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality.

There's a great tradition in storytelling that's thousands of years old, telling stories about kings and their palaces, and that's really what I wanted to do.

Decisions are made by those who show up.

always schedule your comeback.

At life's most significant moments, we are always alone

That I am not my experiences is very obvious. I am the one who is having those experiences. Spirituality has nothing to do with experience.

I speak a little bit of Russian.

Enthusiasm, like the breath of God, transforms everything.

In addition, to punishing sexual offenders and protecting our children, we must also provide services, resources and counseling to the people who are victims of these horrible crimes.

Fashion is a capricious deity.

It's important for me to show my children the richness of life and be a role model. I find that my organizational and management skills are tested more at home than at work!

All emotions are the ore from which poetry may be sifted.

Depression is inertia.