The best jokes on The Leftovers are the ones that make you feel a little sick to your stomach.

As a storyteller, you also don't want to make people feel like they're left out, like other people who have read the book have an interior knowledge of this show, and the degree of difficulty in watching it is much higher.

Lost is a mystery show, so I think that would be stripping the franchise of sort of its essential nature.

I'll never be immune to criticism, and that's okay, and I'm very comfortable with that.

I make no distinction between writing and storytelling; I've always wanted to tell stories.

I place a higher value on work ethic than talent, because, in certain areas, you just need to cast, you need to cast actors with talent, you need to hire directors with talent, but I've worked with very talented people who have a poor work ethic, and the outcome is less desirable than people who are less talented and have an incredible work ethic.

I think one of the problems in determining the ending for a television series is that you don't know how long the show is gonna last. Particularly because we were in the unique position of adapting Tom's Perrotta novel The Leftovers, it always felt like the first season was gonna end with the end of Tom's novel, and then we would figure things out from there and look back.