James L. Brooks

Linking up the things you were with the things you become is what growing up is.

I was raised primarily by women. I had a mother who almost killed herself to survive, I had a sister who was eight years older who was like a second mother, and my mother had two sisters. In the environment I grew up in, I heard a lot of female perspectives.

A television job that's working is the best job in the world.

I was only in college, unfortunately, for, um, a year. I think my major was public relations, and I had no idea what it meant except it seemed maybe attainable.

It's craziness to see yourself as damaged goods, so I was the goofy kid who'd stop a strange adult and say, 'Do you know how to get to Palm Avenue?' They'd say no, and I'd say, 'You go two blocks and turn right. You can't miss it.'

I think television keeps on being a place where writers can go, and if they're successful, they can have their way, and they can have creative freedom.

We can go years without making a picture, and that's fine.

In television writing, even if you're running the writers room, it's a writers room.

When I wrote a gay character, I spent six months asking questions I've never asked a gay friend, the questions you don't ask just because you don't have the right to do it.

Making an authentic film about anything is difficult.

I have a lot of nightmares.

I had a marketing idea that everybody hated, decency is sexy.