My ultimare goal is, without illusion and without sentimentality, merely by telling the truth as I see it, to break your heart. If I can break your heart and cause your awareness to expand to include another person's experience, even a fictional person's experience, and to inhabit for a moment their sorrow and suffering, then I think it expands us as people.

As human beings, we are nothing but the stories we live and die by — so you’d better be careful what stories you tell yourself.

I made True Detective like it was going to be the only thing I ever made for television. So put in everything and the kitchen sink. Everything.

I'm not in the service business.

There's never been anything I didn't love that I didn't connect with on a personal level because to some degree, I projected upon it.

Whatever I watched, whatever I loved in 36 years of life on Earth, probably had some influence on me.

The work is where I tend to feel pressure - not so much in the reaction to it.