I think there's a kind of elegance to it, to work within that framework where what you don't see is often more enticing.

My major goal is to take my bathrobe off before the kids get home from school.

I am trying to be as impartial as possible. As you can tell from the trailers for Mad Men, I am a person who believes that you should know nothing.

Every single word that's on the screen, I oversee. There's nothing that's shot, I'm not involved in. The scripts go through multiple drafts, and I work with the writers on all these things. And I'm extremely involved in the writing process.

It took seven years from the time I wrote Mad Men until it finally got on the screen. I lived every day with that script as if it were going to happen tomorrow. That’s the faith you have to have.

I am a competitive person, but it's so hard to do a show. Anybody who gets to the point where they get their show on the air, I wish them the best. It's too hard. I'd rather waste energy thinking good things on myself.

I was never really that worried about being a member of the Sopranos crew. I think it looks kind of fun to not have to work, to not have to take crap from anybody. And then there's the reality check in there, which is that you do have to work, you do have to take crap from people, and you can fail, and all these other things.