The Atlantic really gave me my writing career - even just the conviction to be a writer.

Certain experiences you can't survive, and afterward you don't fully exist, even if you failed to die.

We live in a culture that has a real hard time distinguishing fiction from reality. Even when they're told something is fiction.

Often, what allows someone to behave heroically in dire circumstances is unpalatable in day-to-day life.

I made True Detective like it was going to be the only thing I ever made for television. So put in everything and the kitchen sink. Everything.

As human beings, we are nothing but the stories we live and die by — so you’d better be careful what stories you tell yourself.

Killing characters on television has become an easy short cut to cathartic emotion.

I knew the past wasn't real. It was only an idea, and the thing I'd wanted to touch, to brush against, the feeling I couldn't name - it just didn't exist. It was only an idea, too.

The ideas within this philosophy are certainly not exclusive to any writer.

I'm not in the service business.

I was raised by television. It was my first cultural window. It was a constant companion.

Christ did not ask or want to be what he was not.

Problems are the price of progress. Don't bring me anything but trouble.

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbours.

The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.

The Law of Triviality... briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.

I'm certainly very conservative when it comes to education. We're getting rid of Common Core. We're going to have education at a local level.

I never get bored. There isn't enough time in the day for me.

The intellect is no longer the chairman of the board - it is an employee. It becomes a tool in the service of the heart.

This is a hard fight and we had better all die than lose it.

Underconfidence breeds underachievement.