For me, boviscopophobia is an even stronger motive than semi-agoraphobia for staying on the ship when we're in port.

TV's "real" agenda is to be "liked," because if you like what you're seeing, you'll stay tuned. TV is completely unabashed about this; it's its sole raison.

When a solipsist dies ... everything goes with him.

There's a certain kind of neurological makeup that goes along with being a writer, and having been in the room with a few other writers at the same time, it's rather wearing to be around. And it does - there is a kind of hypervigilance about it. Unfortunately it's got disadvantages. If you turn that hypervigilance on yourself and, for instance, whether or not you have a pimple on the end of your nose, it can get really depressing.

I received 500,000 discrete bits of information today, of which maybe 25 are important. My job is to make some sense of it.

What TV is extremely good at - and realize that this is 'all it does' - is discerning what large numbers of people think they want, and supplying it.

You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.