I really gravitate to the comedy of tonal contrasts. I hope that doesn't sound insufferably pretentious. What I mean is people having reactions to things that seem inappropriate, or being happy in an apparently unhappy situation.

The funny thing for me is, I have never lived in a network world.

I'm always looking for what's something that Bradley Whitford's character can say that is completely outrageous and completely wrong, but in a double-reverse way is actually totally right. I don't really like where there's a story and you lay a few jokes on top of it.

One of the things that I have always been interested in is the actual experience of people in their lives as opposed to what we think their experience should be.

I have always been drawn to characters, and this was true for my feature-writing career as well, where there is a tension between rule-breaking and rule-following.

I just really like writing and making television shows. There are ego rewards in doing battle with other television programs in prime time in the main season. I suppose there are times when I might look at that and think that's the major league. But when you look at it, ultimately would I really want to gamble my livelihood and my ability to connect with my fan base or write a show that I really like writing, or in some cases direct a show that I really like directing, for the sake of winning an ego battle? It's totally not worth it. That stuff is so ephemeral.

The idea of the writer/producer in television is much younger than people think it is.