Jon Hamm is incredibly good at playing people who have secrets and are hiding aspects of their personality, and obviously Don Draper had a lot of that.

The first person I met in the business was David Heyman, who was a producer on Daytrippers and who went on to produce the highly-unsuccessful Harry Potter series.

I feel this way about a lot of movies, that the characters are idealized versions of people. For better or worse, I am as fascinated with human flaws as anything.

Jon Hamm was the first I thought of for the other role in [Keeping Up with the Joneses], I recently worked with him on Clear History, an HBO improv movie that we had done together.

It actually took me 20 years to want to write about my youth. I was definitely always a little intimidated about writing about that part of my life.

One of the dangers of making a movie about young people is it's potentially trite.

My first love will always be movies.

I feel like I'm long overdue for a "one for me" movie, so I've got two low-budget indy personal things I'm working on.

I've been co-writing a TV thing with Bryan Cranston, which we are going to find out soon if it's moving forward or not which is for Amazon.

Brian Eno records and music became a huge obsession of mine in college, in a way that a pop song can provide solace. I don't know if it's shallow or silly, but it meant so much to me.

Even the mistakes and the pain that you've caused and enacted upon you. That is definitely what I'm trying to capture

Accepting uncertainty was the key to happiness.

Joy blooms where minds and hearts are open.

To hear of a thousand deaths in war is terrible, and we "know" that it is. But as it registers on our hearts, it is not more terrible than one death fully imagined.

Don’t be disappointed, the winning side is not always the right one.

Opportunity knocks once at every man's door and then keeps on knocking.

There is no such thing as a survivable or local nuclear war.

When the private does well, there's revenue for the public sector.

Political stability was at most a factor in assessing developing countries or Russia. It is now also an issue in Western democracies.

As the son of an immigrant family, I am happy to be a guest in U.S, which was largely built by such families.

Don't sweat the small stuff...and it's all small stuff.