If I have to write on an airplane or get up early to write or write late, you just gotta sit down. When you have the time, you have to be able to do it.

In the TV business, you've got to write fast, and someone will tell you, "Can you rewrite this episode before... 6 p.m.?" So that's when you rewrite it. You can't wait for the muse to show up.

If I have to write on an airplane or get up early to write or write late, you just gotta sit down. When you have the time, you have to be able to do it.

A two-hour movie tends to be a plot-delivery device; you tend to have to introduce all the characters, say what the goal is, and then get there with a setback, but that's not really how life is or what a story necessarily wants to be.

My feeling has always been if you entertain people, they give you permission to do more on a thematic or character level.

In a book you can really talk about ideas and themes and characters in a deeper way than you can even on the screen.

A novel is a relationship, you know? When you read a book, the writer has done half the work, and you're doing half the work. You're providing the imagination, the words are turning into pictures in your mind, there's an active relationship that's going on.