The little details really connect for people in ways I never realized before.I think that's why some of the movies have done well, because people are relating to things that I'm willing to expose.

Television is much more difficult because at every moment, the network can force you to change things based on their belief about what would make it popular. You’re in a constant debate with a gun to your head, and the gun is cancellation. So it’s hard to win the arguments.

To me, I've never understood why there is any question about are women as funny as men.

I start casting early in the writing process, so I can tailor the script to the gifts of the actors.

The only thing worse than a crappy TV show which Paddy Chayevsky couldn't have conceived in his worst nightmare is two megacorps fighting over who thought of the crappy show first.

I hosted the Producer's Guild Awards, and it went well, and I was very happy in the moment, and it was a fun night. But I wake up the next day like someone who did crack the night before and told off the world, and I'm ashamed of the whole idea that anyone should listen to me, or the idea that I need that much approval.

Any music star would be singing about his lost love. A movie would be about a relatable incident; it wasn't an untouchable magic dragon box. It was something that people could relate to, and when I vanished a girl, it would be a story about a girl that left me, or a cutting into pieces would be a date with a magician. I wouldn't just vanish a girl in a shower, I would do the shower scene from Psycho [1960] with a [Alfred] Hitchcock cameo.