Toby Zeigler: There's literally no one in the world I don't hate right now.

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

A friend is somebody who says the same things to your face that they would say if you're not in the room.

Any time you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written. That's what I look for.

Larry David called me and said, "You can never watch The West Wing again. Either the show is going to be great without you and you're going to be miserable, or the show is going to be less than great without you and you're going to be miserable." So I had them send a tape of the first episode that I didn't do. I put it in the VCR and I don't think I got 15 seconds in before I leapt up and slammed it off! It felt like I was watching somebody make out with my girlfriend. I've never seen a West Wing episode in seasons five, six or seven.

The real problem with all drugs is that they work. Fantastically. They're great, right up until the moment they kill you.

Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.