I was coming from a theater background. I had an obsession with classic film and cool, interesting, intelligent television. I didn't really understand the way the mainstream television industry worked. I just thought "The wire is so good that it's going to be a huge hit, and we'll get awards up the yin-yang forever." That's what I thought!

That's what David Caruso said to me. We were talking about the whole Emmy thing, and he said that one of the things about awards in this town is that a lot is about the drama - like the drama of the performance. And he said "Your show, The Wire, looks so real, it almost looks like a documentary. And people who aren't artists - a lot of people who vote for this stuff - don't get it."

You either get better, or you don't progress.

'The Wire' really drew on a lot of real-life situations and real-life organizations - it created fiction to make a social statement about reality.

I started to realize, a lot of times if you go into your memory, your sense memory, you know more than you think you do, from having watched and listened.

Nothing will ever top 'The Wire.' It was historical. It was black cinema.

Don't be a victim; if you want to make movies, make movies.