Make no mistake about it, you are dumb. You’re a group of incredibly well-educated dumb people. I was there. We all were there. You’re barely functional. There are some screw-ups headed your way. I wish I could tell you that there was a trick to avoiding the screw-ups, but the screw-ups, they’re a-coming for ya. It’s a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.

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

My resting pulse as a writer is writing idealistically and romantically; aspirationally. My taste lies in quixotic heroes.

The Monica Lewinsky scandal was happening at the very time I was writing the West Wing pilot and it was hard, at least for Americans, to look at the White House and think of anything but a punch line. Plus a show about politics, a show that took place in Washington, had just never worked before in American television. So the show was delayed for a year.

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

She's a person; the doctor pronounces her dead, not the news.

Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep can play with the boys but there just aren't that many tour-de-force roles out there for women.