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

Where I came from, no one was a writer.

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

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.

Listening takes practice, and it takes patience. But I promise, if you listen, your story will be better for it.

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.

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.