In a novel, the only budgetary limitations are that of your imagination.

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.

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've always wanted to write a novel. It's overwhelming and daunting, and it's one of those things that every writer fantasizes about doing.

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.

Traditionally, people have been adapting novels and short stories forever. Now, they're doing it simultaneously, with an eye towards writing the movie before the novel has even come out or been finished. It's a function of this hyper-accelerated society we live in, where everyone is trying to short circuit the process.

Where I came from, no one was a writer.