You hear the term "staying grounded" a lot when you're coming up in the movie industry and it's the one word I don't really understand because it implies being tethered almost and I don't like that. Why stay grounded? You might as well become a complete eccentric, float off into the sky and burn yourself on the sun and go crazy.

This is for the writers. I want to thank all the writers. I especially want to thank my fellow nominees because I worship you guys and I'm learning from you every day.

I didn't even know how to talk to people, I didn't know how to talk to the press. I was just a jester. And I still feel that way. But, I mean, what haven't I learned? Everything that I know is new information because I was starting with nothing.

I have a lot of screenwriter friends and many of them have had an experience where they aren't even welcome on set during production.

Hollywood is a perpetual summerland, a temperate, godless yaw where the very word 'season' has been co-opted by television executives. There are few harbingers of winter here.

I know most people don't like to be around teenagers but I do. I'm one of the only people I can think of who can't wait for my kid to be a teenager. I think being a teenager is one of the most wonderful things in the world. I really enjoyed it - just this heightened emotional state where everything is beautiful and everything is new and you're convinced that you're really going to break the mould and be different from your parents. And the best part is that you have so much more time that you didn't have as a child.

I grew up in the Midwest; you don't know any screenwriters. It didn't seem like a realistic career possibility.