The flower inside the fruit that is both its parent and its child. Decadent as ancestors. The portal and that which passes. Nuclear devices activated, and the machine keeps pushing time through the cogs, like paste into strings into paste again, and only the machine keeps using time to make time to make time. And when the machine stops, time was an illusion that we created free will.

As frustrating as it gets, at times, and as frustrating as it is, at times, I don't think I've ever considered doing something else, or not wanted to do it anymore. To me, it's just the greatest job. It's a good fit for who I am and what I want to be.

I'm always tempted in the back of my mind to continue to write things in the Star Trek universe, in the novels or the comics, just because I don't get to play in that universe and I don't get to hang out with those characters any more. You spend hours upon hours of your life, day after day sitting in writers' rooms, talking about these people and these situations, and it becomes very real to you. They're friends of yours, in a lot of ways.

I think people are screw-ups, and even our greatest heroes are deeply flawed human beings. People make bad decisions for all the wrong reasons, and then somehow they'll do the right thing, and then somehow they'll save somebody, or they'll be compassionate. Horrible people can do wonderful things, and wonderful people can do horrible things.

There are definitely times when the outside eye can shine a light on something you weren't aware of. They're usually exposing a flaw or a problem. Sometimes they're saying, "Hey, this doesn't really work. Have you seen this?" And then, you go, "Oh, I didn't really see that. You're right, that doesn't work." If they're good, they shine a light on issues that you're blind to because you're too close to it.

When Kirk dies it was very emotional and very strange, in the moment and all the way through the process. I'd read it in the script and I'd always be struck by what I'd just done and what we were doing, and that this was my childhood hero and I was writing his death.

It's a gift. Never lend a book.