Aaron Sorkin

There are some screw-ups headed your way. I wish I could tell you that there was a trick to avoiding the screw-ups... but they're coming for ya. It's a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.

It's a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.

I like writing idealistically, romantically and swashbucklingly.

I'll get cast occasionally as sort of the jerk version of myself, and I have fun doing that. But it's really better for everyone if I stay behind the camera.

When we were doing 'The West Wing,' the hardest thing about doing 'The West Wing' was being compared to yourself. You go out there and want every episode to be as good as your best episode. I wrote 88 episodes of 'The West Wing,' and when you do that, one of them is going to be your 88th best, so your 88th best better be pretty good.

I spend most of my days pacing around, muttering that I have no ideas, feeling like I'm walking a plank.

When a movie is being rolled out, the studio publicists and all our individual publicists get together and come up with bullet points and talking points - 'Make sure you stay away from this,' and 'Don't say that quite that way, because that quote can be taken out of context,' and that kind of thing.

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

I love writing but hate starting. The page is awfully white, and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time, but those days are over, giftless. I'm not your agent, and I'm not your mommy; I'm a white piece of paper. You wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't. I'll go peaceable-like.

I'm not on Facebook, and I don't tweet, but I know plenty of people who love both.

I desperately need the love of complete strangers. That's one reason I overtip. I love when skycaps, waiters, and valets are happy to see me.

I get nervous before openings or premieres or when someone's reading a new script, and I get nervous when my daughter isn't in my immediate field of vision.