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.

The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one - America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.

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

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.

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.

I'll get cast occasionally as sort of the jerk version of myself, and I have fun doing that. But it's really better for everyone if I stay behind the camera.

When you're writing a movie or a play and writing isn't going well, which is for me the normal condition - it's an exceptional day when suddenly I've got something and it's going well - you can call the studio or the producer or whoever is waiting for it and say, "I know I said I was going to have it in by the end of the summer.