In high school, I was performing "forensics." You take a section of a play and portray all the characters. I even went to camp for forensics.

I looked back at some high school journals and discovered that I definitely wanted to be a writer, but not necessarily comedy.

Writing is just my first love. And I still have some issues with telling people what to do.

Women are often pushed into the idea that they write softer, more character-driven jokes.

I actually write some pretty tough jokes. I don't want to push the "soft" angle too much.

I remember one guy saying, "You're the only human out of all of them," and feeling a little concerned that somehow that meant I wasn't as funny.

I did improv at Yale, with the Exit Players. It was great, but they played a little rough.

I've met a surprising number of comedy writers whose parents are scientists. Both have an antiauthoritarian slant - they're both skeptics.

I do love science. My father is a scientist.

Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need.

No one has the right to force his or her way of life on anyone else.

The gap between our sincere values and our actual behavior is the source of all self-hatred.

Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck, and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart, 'I never dreamed of such happiness as this, while I was an ugly duckling.

Well blest is he who has a dear one dead; A friend he has whose face will never change- A dear communion that will not grow strange; The anchor of a love is death.

We usually focus on what we're doing or where we're going, but God's primary concern is who we're becoming in the process.

Anyone who tries to make a living as a painter knows you can't lounge about waiting for inspiration to hit; nothing motivates like keeping a roof over your head.

You know, a TV show is a slow build.

The power of God will take you out of your own plans and put you into the plan of God.

People have to be educated and they have to stick to it. If people lose that respect, an awful lot is lost