Now we really like to put people in boxes. As men, we do it because we don't understand characters that aren't ourselves and we aren't willing to put ourselves in the skin of those characters and women, I think, terrify us. We tend not to write women as human beings. It's cartoons we're making now. And that's a shame.

Right after we invaded Iraq, I put a sign on my lawn that said "War is not the answer." That sign was either defaced, ripped up, or stolen every week. I had to replace that sign twelve times.

We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'.

I try not to think of actors as I'm writing because I think you do them a disservice by writing for things they've already done.

When we're threatened, it's very easy to appeal to our basic natures.

Walk through Santa Monica and try to find somebody who knows a young man or woman who's in this war. Here, war is an intellectual concept. If you lose your son or daughter, it's no longer an intellectual matter.

What happens when these young men and women come home so scarred and so wounded? We are ignoring that fact. We're just shoving them under the carpet.