Music is what mathematics does on a Saturday night.

I've never met anyone who has said, "My goal is to make America mediocre." That's a kind of hard-right conservative fallacy.

Honestly, I don't try to guess at what most people want. I don't think I'd guess right, and I just think that that's not a good recipe for storytelling. I try to write what I like, what I think my friends would like.

But HBO is less interested in how many people are watching than in how much the people who are watching are liking the show. They didn't set up their business model to make writers happy. It's just a nice unintended consequence.

Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.

Only criminals and adulterers should have to hide who they are.

I'm terribly afraid of failure. When your identity is wrapped up in writing and you've written something that doesn't work, it's a tough pill to swallow.