We have things to say about Congress and all of that. I think we may have our magnum opus coming yet. It's a piece called "Leonard" that I'm very excited about, and I think we're going to see a side of Chris Pine that people haven't really seen yet. That's all I'm going to say, but I'm proud of it.

The fact that a TV star can become president should be old news since [Ronald] Reagan, and old news since the Nixon-Kennedy debates - which the famous story, whether or not you agree, is that if you listened on the radio, Nixon won; if you listened on TV, Kennedy won.

I'm pretty much good at heroic narratives and making people laugh.

There was a time before I felt I was a real writer, when I was a yarn spinner and I just wanted to tell story until it was over. But then there came a time where I was like, 'No, I want to understand something through writing this that I might have not understood before. I want people to come away with something to think about.'

[Donald Trump] thinks in tiny little bursts - the way he tweets.

I think Hillary Clinton is vastly intelligent and good-hearted and extremely qualified.

My mother really was an extraordinary, inspirational, tough, cool, sexy, funny woman and that's the kind of woman I've always surrounded myself with. It's my friends, particularly my wife, who is not only smarter than and stronger than I am but, occasionally taller too. I think it all goes back to my mother. My father and my stepfather prized whit and resolve in the women they were with above all things. And they were among the rare men who understood that recognising somebody else's power does not diminish your own.