Television is a great job for a writer in the way that movies used to be, way before my time. Back when writers in Hollywood were on staff or under contract at any given studio and you'd write movie scripts and then the movies would get made within a few weeks, such that you could be a working writer in the movie business back in the '30s and '40s and '50s and have a hand in writing five or six movies a year that actually got produced. The only thing remotely like that in the 21st century here in Hollywood is working in the TV business.

Let the audience put 2 and 2 together so that it comes up with 4. Let them do that themselves, and they'll love you forever.

I've imparted that philosophy to the writers, but some of them look stuff up while some don't. Same with the editors, directors and actors. To each their own.

It's like that old expression: "Men plan and god laughs." You sort of see that in the television world, where you have an idea where things are heading and you have a plan and sort of start off in that general direction, but you wind up taking all these side paths and whatnot - if you're lucky.

It's often the case with successful TV shows that they kind of inadvertently live on past their prime. It's best to leave the audience wanting more.

I want to believe there's a heaven. But I can't not believe there's a hell.

The last thing in the world that I would want to know, in my own life, is when I'm going to pass away.