If I write scripts that nobody likes, I don't think we'll be doing 'True Detective.'

Killing characters on television has become an easy short cut to cathartic emotion.

I find the constraints of drama actually freeing: It brings everything down to character and action.

I read The Conspiracy Against the Human Race and found it incredibly powerful writing. For me as a reader, it was less impactful as philosophy than as one writers ultimate confessional: an absolute horror story, where the self is the monster.

Some people, no matter where they look, they see themselves.

I've found that all weak people share a basic obsession - they fixate on the idea of satisfaction. Anywhere you go men and women are like crows drawn by shiny objects. For some folks, the shiny objects are other people, and you'd be better off developing a drug habit.

At DePauw, I was teaching writing and fiction. The things I wanted to teach, more than anything else, were form and theory of the novel, of narrative. I liked those classes.