We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.

As a dramatist, you're looking for points of friction.

I have a lot of respect for people who are great at ad-libbing, and for writers and directors who are able to create a scene in which that works.

I like workplace shows and White House was a very glamorous workplace to set a show in; it appealed to a sense of romanticism and idealism that I have.

Toby: All right. It couldn't have gone far, right? Sam: No. Toby: Somewhere in this building...is our talent.

If you can socialize from the privacy of your desk at night in a dark room, you can be a smoother, cooler, funnier, sexy, more everything person than you actually are in real life.

One of the biggest challenges in the past for me in working on the networks was that audiences have grown accustomed to television being something that keeps you company-background music, something that you have on while you're flipping through a magazine, cooking dinner, talking on the phone, putting the kids to bed.