You need to know that going in, and you also need to be able to write all the time. So when somebody looks at you across the table and says, "What do you think about a movie where Miley Cyrus switches souls with a basset hound?" You need to be able to sit there and figure out how to make that possibly shootable.

You have to be willing to throw [writing] stuff away and replace it.

If you can learn to be incredibly passionate about your work without fighting for it just because it's yours, that's a huge thing.

When somebody would come in with a sketch that was not so good, you figured out in a room how to make that sketch work.

You need to know that going in, and you also need to be able to write all the time. So when somebody looks at you across the table and says, "What do you think about a movie where Miley Cyrus switches souls with a basset hound?" You need to be able to sit there and figure out how to make that possibly shootable.

Not taking criticism of your writing personally is an enormous step towards surviving the studio system.

For a living I write stuff that I know is gonna sell to a studio and make a lot of money at the multiplex.