I stand by the Lost finale. It's the story that we wanted to tell, and we told it. No excuses. No apologies. I look back on it as fondly as I look back on the process of writing the whole show. And while I'll always care what you think, I can't be a slave to it anymore. Here's why: I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really … I was alive.

Hindsight is 20/20, but the moral of the writing for me is that when you're feeling very scared and nervous about something and you're fairly convinced that it could be a massive disaster, that's exactly the idea that you should do.

I think the idea that television has evolved to this place of real thematic richness and the fact that you no longer have to get 10 million people to watch your show in order to propagate its survival are the best things that have ever happened to storytelling in this medium.

Everything I've ever been a fan of, whether it's Star Wars or the New York Jets, I've also been very hard on at times. It's sort of like, I go to a Jets game, I want them to win, but the minute they fumble the ball, I go, "I f**king knew it! F**king Jets!" That's part of loving something. As long as you love it, you have carte blanche to critique it as well, of course. That's part of being a fan of anything.

If I went for a long period in my life where I was unemployed and I was unable to make a living and the only way for me to basically provide for my family was, "Hey, we're bringing Lost back!", then I would probably consider it. But I feel like it would be a betrayal to the fandom, and myself, to do anymore Lost, because we had such an adequate period of time to end the show.

Essentially, there's no scientific evidence whatsoever that could ever be presented to me that would wipe out my fundamental spiritual beliefs.

If you're constantly hamstrung by worry that people aren't going to like it, you can't do your job.