I don't have personal experience and knowledge about anything but theater. I've been tutored very well on the subject, but ultimately I'm going back to the rules of drama. There are genres that I like as an audience member that I can't write as a writer. I can't write crime, and I like a good thriller as much as anybody.

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.

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.

Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I'm going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig.

I do enjoy the fact that we don't have a king or queen; we have a person with a very unusual temp job for a few years. My favorite moments on the show were always showing the intersection of the person and the job. Any time Bartlet from the West Wing could be something other than the president - a father, or a husband, or a son, or a friend.

We lead the world in only 3 categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies. Now none of this is the fault of 20 year old college student, but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst period generation period ever period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world I don't know what the f...k you're talking about.

It wouldn't kill you to watch a film or pick up a newspaper once in a while.