The State trained us to make other people's terrible jokes work, which is the other part of the game when you're here.

Probably your first agent is going to be some guy who also handles dog acts.

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

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

The State trained us to make other people's terrible jokes work, which is the other part of the game when you're here.

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.

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