I always think it's better to take your time and go through a lot of ideas - and dismiss a lot of ideas - before figuring out where to land. It's a good way to care for your audience, too. If you spend hours and hours and days and weeks coming up with the ending, then there's a chance the fans won't figure it out on their own.

I don't want my writing to be so unique that when you apply it to different genres, it seems like the previous show that people know you from.

I don't ever want to have a weak episode of television with my name on it.

TV is just such a fast-moving medium that you do what you can do, and what you can't do, you don't worry about too much.

Working as a showrunner has made it tougher to watch other shows and movies.

I was never that kid who grew up in New York and was always at the arthouse watching important films. I was the kid who grew up in the Midwest where there weren't any art films, and I watched TV. And that was really the medium that affected me and that I fell in love with.

One of the tricky things about running a TV show is that you just never know how good the guest stars you cast on a weekly basis, how good they're going to be in the episode. Sometimes they surprise you in good ways and sometimes they surprise you in disappointing ways.