I don't think I could write a straight drama.

Chemistry is not anything an executive producer or writer can orchestrate or plan; you just hope for it.

But I do believe that in all my shows, I really enjoy the quirky, the eccentric characters, the ones you don't meet every day.

I gravitate toward the law, I think, certainly more times than not, because it's our best mechanism for legislating human behavior, and morality, and ethics.

We also have issue oriented storylines which are an examination of an issue, be it ethical or social.

When I really have to push and grope and scratch and claw to make a story work, that's a telltale sign that maybe something conceptually isn't right.

In retrospect, I think it's a plus, because now we've been able to go back and spend extra time on each of those episodes and make them better.

Some of my high school teachers did remind me that I had an excellent imagination when it came to making up excuses.

You learn more when things go wrong.

When you create a show, and create characters, these people are like children to you.

I never thought of myself as a writer.

Help your fatherAs he ages And loses his strengthFor it was he who sheltered youAnd protected you from the stormsKhoiSan Book of Wisdom

Mother, death, love -- everyone shares, unequally, those three poles of fascination.

I think I'm a tiny bit like Harry 'cos I'd like to have an owl. Yeah, that's the tiny bit, actually.

This is the twenty-first century - you have to know what you want, then set upon it with everything you've got.

The secret is to enjoy being you.

The inner life is the whole man, and forms all the worth of man.

I hope to live long and be happy. But I'd like to be remembered as somebody who did good rather than mischief.

I don't see white police officers slamming the heads of little white boys into police cars.

I never had to worry about divestment because I never invested.

Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them.