The thing that always interests me from a storytelling point of view is how that moment of trauma, whatever the trauma is, even divorce, your dog dies, whatever it is, the consequence, in terms of people's emotional lives and the way it resonates behaviorally for a long time is really the stuff that interests me.

When it is perceived that a show has gone awry, the pressure is staggering, and as a writer caught in that storm, it feels like you are being attacked by jackals.

One of the problems of writing is that anyone who commits themselves to that process has to believe that they're good.

Hill Street Blues might have been the first television show that had a memory. One episode after another was part of a cumulative experience shared by the audience.

You have to give directors and cinematographers a word blueprint for visuals, but I had to learn that from experience.

Being a good television screenwriter requires an understanding of the way film accelerates the communication of words.

If bad taste were a felony, every writer I know would've done prison time.