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

I liked writing, and I loved movies, obsessively loved movies, but I had never made the leap of thinking I would actually come out here and write stuff.

There are a huge amount of people who sell a TV pilot, every year, but most of them never get produced. It's very easy to make a living and never get anything produced.

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

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

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.

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