Elite is not a bad word, it's an aspirational one.

It was hard saying goodbye to the character and harder saying goodbye to the actor. When rumours started going around that Rob Lowe might be leaving I got an email from Josh Malina asking if I'd be interested in an actor who was cheaper and not as good looking. I wrote back, "Always", and that was that.

As an audience member, I like the sound of something that's been written - I like it to sound written. And then, of course, you can't do it without the musicians who can play it.

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

Larry David called me and said, "You can never watch The West Wing again. Either the show is going to be great without you and you're going to be miserable, or the show is going to be less than great without you and you're going to be miserable." So I had them send a tape of the first episode that I didn't do. I put it in the VCR and I don't think I got 15 seconds in before I leapt up and slammed it off! It felt like I was watching somebody make out with my girlfriend. I've never seen a West Wing episode in seasons five, six or seven.

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.

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