My job, as I see it, is to give you a window into another world and another story, and then to be as graceful as I can so that you don't feel my work or the editor's work or the lens or the light or anything.

You learn to do your best writing on story rather than off story. Very often at the beginning of their careers, writers including me do their best dialogue writing off story - the best lines, the best observations - but they haven't got enough to do with the plot to stay in.

I like to write about love plus an obstacle. Not a really big obstacle; not too serious and not too funny. Just somewhere nicely in between - a combination of the two.

It's always hard, but it's always fun to attack a premise that you think is interesting. It does take a few drafts for sure.

Most of the jokes that I wrote were funny and there always seems to be an aspect of comedy in my long-form work. I think that's how life is. I think even the more dramatic moments of one's life are often punctuated by very funny comments or situations. I like to say, "Keep your comedy serious and your drama funny, and you'll be pretty true to life."

I think everybody has a little rule follower and a little rule breaker in them.

You want to surround yourself with people who are as dedicated to their discipline as you are to yours and let them do what they do.