If you've ever had somebody try to sell you something - people who can sell, they really are not manipulating you. They are selling themselves.

TV writing is for people who hate being alone more than they hate writing.

The show is not a history lesson or intellectual exploration. It is entertainment based on tension, irony and storytelling that is closely related to today’s life.

You don't drink and smoke that much, and womanize that much, unless you really want to be punished, I think.

It took seven years from the time I wrote Mad Men until it finally got on the screen. I lived every day with that script as if it were going to happen tomorrow. That’s the faith you have to have.

Seeing movie people trying to get into TV now who don't understand that is very interesting.

Hate is more interesting than love.

Opinions can't be inaccurate.

I'm very supportive of creative people being paid for the work that they do.

I'm in the entertainment business, where you're only as good as your last show.

It's an ugly thing to see ambition and to see people satisfying themselves.

It's hard to be spontaneous when you have 40 people in your crew, and you're playing to 16,000 people every night, and there's giant lighting rigs, it's hard to change direction on a dime.

[One task of intellectuals is] to break down the stereotypes and reductive categories that are . . . limiting to human thought and communication.

There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection.

I know I said sometimes I wear clothes but apparently I lied...I'm only packing swimsuits.

The question was, have you heard from anyone on the [Donald] Trump transition team? We have not been contacted.

Do not try to be what you are not, be what you are. The Universe has a built in truth recognizer, what ever is false about you, it will expose to light, either through you or others, pay attention.

Everything of this life as a mortal is fiction. It seems real, but...

Nothing else even comes close.

For a noble heart, the most precious gift becomes poor, when the giver stops loving.

I believe that if Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus, and Moses all got together they would be best of friends because the spiritual basis of all religions is something that builds unity.