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

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.

In the summer of 2010, I had decided to get into film and TV writing, so I wrote scripts for six different ideas I had developed, and the pilot for True Detective was one of them.

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.

We live in a culture that has a real hard time distinguishing fiction from reality. Even when they're told something is fiction.

I didn't come to Hollywood to be subservient to anyone else's vision.

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