Feelings come and go, unless you don't feel them. Then they stay, and hurt, and grow pear-shaped and weird.

It's hard to find scripts that know what they are from page one to page 115.

As I've gotten older I've become a devotee of 19th-century authors, such as Charles Dickens and George Eliot.

The only episode which was completely my idea was for Mitch Pileggi, the actor who portrays Skinner, the Assistant Director of the FBI. He appears often in the series, but only for a few scenes. You know virtually nothing about him. I wanted him to have an episode that was his alone, so I wrote Avatar for him. He even has a scene that's pretty . . . hot [knowing smile]. He was very happy.

If my work was good enough, I would never have to do publicity.

It's always like you write a poem when you can't really say what you're trying to say.

It seems unlikely that we're alone in the universe. But I'm pretty sure nobody's hiding any contact.