I wrote the show West Wing for the two years before and the two years after 9/11. Suddenly everyone in the world had been through something that our characters had not been through; the whole trajectory of the world had changed. Yet our show took place in a parallel universe. I wasn't really sure what to do about this. In no one's wildest dreams did it occur that an event like this could possibly happen.

That's a very real feeling - that I don't have a story to tell. I'm not a pure storyteller. I have a tough time with story.

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

Josh: So, Toby, it’s election night. What do you say about a country that goes out of its way to protect even those citizens that try to destroy it? Toby: God bless America.

We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.

I would love for people to think that I am as quick, clever, smart and heroic as the characters that I write, but those characters are characters.

I'll get cast occasionally as sort of the jerk version of myself, and I have fun doing that. But it's really better for everyone if I stay behind the camera.