But I do think that, when you slow the conveyor belt down, the quality control tends to go up. You have a lot more time between seasons to talk about what worked and what didn't work, and plan for the future. And the pacing of the storytelling, particularly for on-going serialized dramas, means that you don't need to do non-essential episodes, just because you have to fill this pre-existing schedule.

Just put your best foot forward and hope for the best. You also have to acknowledge that you're going to make mistakes.

Sometimes we get frustrated ourselves and decide it's time to download a big chunk of mythology. And then the audience says, 'I find this confusing and alienating and too weird.' So then we pull back, and they say, 'You're not giving us enough'.

Some of the things I love the most are when a writer or a visionary takes on sort of an iconic character and then spins it. Like with Frank Miller, Batman was this one thing for basically forty years, and then Frank Miller came along and said he can also be this other thing. And Christopher Nolan came along and said he can also be this other thing. The idea of taking iconic comic book characters or superhero characters or mythic characters and subverting the genre or coming up with a new idea is something that's really interesting to me.

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

I think 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy has a very satisfying ending, and there's not really that deep of a mythological construct.

If your friend is critical [of your work], you have to have a very thick skin and a thick skin is something that only builds up after it's callused for awhile.