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

When you do a TV show, the cumulative intimacy you develop with the audience through your characters is pretty profound. It may be the most profound storytelling there is, because the character gets to live and roll around in the audience's mind week after week.

The novel remains a very special form for me.

I feel like a centrist, an issue-specific person. I'm pretty conservative fiscally and pretty liberal on social issues.

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

I have a ways to go as a novelist. But what's great is, well, I frankly enjoyed the solitude. And I enjoyed being able to tell characters what to say and do without negotiating with an actor.