Our future can't be separated from the fact that we are all going to be increasingly compacted into urban areas, though we're different in race and culture and religion. And what we make of that will determine the American future.

For a detective or street police, the only real satisfaction is the work itself; when a cop spends more and more time getting aggravated with the details, he's finished. The attitude of co-workers, the indifference of superiors, the poor quality of the equipment - all of it pales if you still love the job; all of it matters if you don't.

Rural America's not coming back. That idea was lost with the Industrial Revolution.

TV writers live life of well-paid, specialty prostitutes. We have a very special skill set and we occupy one of the higher floors in the bordello that is writing. We do a very particular job for a very select clientele.

There came this point where I sat down with all my notebooks and I had to start to write, when I thought: this whole notion of writing for the person who understands nothing, the average reader ... He has to die! I can't have him in my head. And so the person I started writing for was the homicide detective.

When we were kids coming up, if you stole your dad's Playboy magazine, that was about as much of an education as you were gonna get. You finish looking at the centrefold and you read 'The Playboy Adviser' that told you about what stereo to buy and something about sex which you didn't quite understand, and you were still just as confused. Now if you're ten the entire world of human sexuality, and a very misogynistic version of that, is available to you on a laptop after a couple of key strokes. I think it's changed the vernacular in the way men address women.

Unless you loosen the hold that your past has on you, your future will unfold in much the same way . . . it is time to begin writing a new script that accurately reflects the beautiful, powerful, and worthy being you are.