I have written a bunch of scripts that have not gotten produced, much more so early in my career than later.

A reversal is just anything that's a surprise. It's a way of keeping the audience interested.

Everyone I know who used to be in the intelligence community is moving into the corporate world.

Ambiguity depletes as your budget rises.

I love the idea of spies in love. How would it work between two people who were so programmed to lie and be suspicious, who have a whole life based on pretence?

You have to know human behaviour … And the quality of your writing is absolutely capped at your understanding of human behaviour. You’ll never write above what you know about people.

The people in the Philippines are so extraordinarily nice.

No one can help you write. No one can teach you how to write.

Different people work different ways.

Fear changes everything. We're animals, and when we get afraid we act like animals. I'm not exempt from that.

I never really like it when other writers talk about coming in behind people and rewriting.

Deep inside, you know it. You're trustworthy. Sadly, you may come across untrustworthy. What are robbing your credibility? Find and fix it!

I haven't always been a patient man...but something tells me you'd be worth the wait.

Fort Smith, being the place of my longest stay, was the scene of my largest medical practice.

I'm very attracted to characters who don't necessarily make it easy to be loved.

If you're a man in your twenties or thirties, and you have yet to make your fortune, I would urge you not to get married.

Part of the heartache of all missionary work is the bright promising convert who turns out to be a mere puffball, crumbling like a macaroon under the least pressure.

My black-and-white work is more of a celebration and the color work became more of a critique of society.

Aristotle him selfe sayeth, that medicines be no meate to lyue withall.

... I suddenly woke up to the fact that if I accepted anybody's definition of what there was in the world, I would be limited.

I am not playing for any lobby. I am playing for national lobby. I will ignore lobby. Anybody has useful suggestion, they can give it to me. The history will speak about it.