Pretty much up until The West Wing, our leaders had always been portrayed in popular culture as either Machiavellian or dolts. But I thought, "What if we show a group of people who are highly competent, they're going to lose as much as they win, but we're going to understand that they wake up every morning wanting to do good?" That was really the spirit behind The West Wing.

Well, I must tell you I write the scripts very close to the bone. So I'm writing episode seven now and couldn't tell you what happens in episode eight.

I'm a registered Republican, I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage.

To use a basketball metaphor, West Wing cast was a group that liked to pass as much as they liked to shoot.

I would love for people to think that I am as quick, clever, smart and heroic as the characters that I write, but those characters are characters.

Never argue with a drunk or a fool.

An artist’s job is to captivate… if we stumble into truth, we got lucky.