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

Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks.

Decisions are made by those who show up.

I'm a playwright. All I care about is the play being good.

I wrote the show West Wing for the two years before and the two years after 9/11. Suddenly everyone in the world had been through something that our characters had not been through; the whole trajectory of the world had changed. Yet our show took place in a parallel universe. I wasn't really sure what to do about this. In no one's wildest dreams did it occur that an event like this could possibly happen.

It's populated by people who, by and large, have terrific communication skills. Every day is an extraordinary day. For me, it was just a great area for storytelling.

I consider plot a necessary intrusion on what I really want to do, which is write snappy dialogue. But when I'm writing, the way the words sound is as important to me as what they mean.