When you're writing a novel, you're still telling a story. But you're telling it very differently. It's a craft like anything else.

I guess I've always been an aspiring novelist. I went to Princeton and wrote a novel for my thesis.

The novel remains a very special form for me.

I'm one of three brothers.

What is absolutely true is that any good [Television] series has a specific voice. And I think that voice is almost exclusively the domain of the executive producer. . . . As a staff writer you're not being called upon to be the great creative person. You're sort of called upon to understand the characters and their voices and put them through certain paces.

I knew I wanted to be a writer. Where I came from, no one was a writer. I came from Long Island, and everyone became a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or a teacher or a businessman. I didn't know any writers.

We're not allowed to carry out harsh interrogations anymore, but we're allowed to fly over somebody's village, without due process, and kill them all?