Writers are opposite of athletes, they get better with age

With a television series, there's a hard deadline, and so you have to write even when you're not writing well.

I've never met anyone who has said, "My goal is to make America mediocre." That's a kind of hard-right conservative fallacy.

I'd been concerned all along that the character of the president in the West Wing pilot would throw the ensemble out of whack, that that character would simply take up all the oxygen in a room. I wanted to hold off bringing this character in until the last possible moment.

Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day: civility, respect, kindness, character.

Never argue with a drunk or a fool.

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