Decisions are made by those who show up.

Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.

I think it's up to writers to write stuff that is compelling enough that people want to watch.

President Bartlet: There's a delegation of cardiologists having their pictures taken in the Blue Room. You wouldn't think you could find a group of people more arrogant than the fifteen of us, but there they are, right upstairs in the Blue Room.

When you're writing a movie or a play and writing isn't going well, which is for me the normal condition - it's an exceptional day when suddenly I've got something and it's going well - you can call the studio or the producer or whoever is waiting for it and say, "I know I said I was going to have it in by the end of the summer.

The real problem with all drugs is that they work. Fantastically. They're great, right up until the moment they kill you.

To use a basketball metaphor, West Wing cast was a group that liked to pass as much as they liked to shoot.