Alan Ball

It's easy to look at the vampires as a metaphor for any feared or misunderstood group. It's also easy to look at them as a metaphor for a shadow organization that says one thing and has a completely different agenda on their mind, and anybody who gets in their way, they just get rid of them. Does that sound familiar? ”

You know, I'm gay and I grew up being aware of that at a very early age, in a fairly repressed family. ”

Not everything is going to be successful. To strive for that is really naive. You just do the best you can do. ”

Somebody asked me, 'Why do people like vampires so much?' This was right after Obama had been elected and I said, 'Because we just spent eight years being sucked dry by one.' ”

The ego is kind of a big, unwieldy thing. It's not so easily tamed or subdued. ”

I'm not like J.K. Rowling, where I know there's going to be this number of seasons, and I know exactly what's going to happen. I would be so bored if that was the case. There would be no journey. There would be nothing to discover. ”

I know a lot of shows are like, 'Here's the pages,' right before they start filming. I'd have a heart attack. The anxiety would be way too much for me. I don't have as strong a backbone as those other show writers. ”

Happy relationships are boring. We all want them in our own life. But I don't want to watch them on TV. ”

Well, here's the thing with relationships on 'True Blood': Once they happen then you have to throw a monkey-wrench into them, because to have people be happy is not that exciting. ”

I really love storytelling, and I love the stories as they reveal themselves. It's an incredibly nourishing process; it's probably the closest I come to having a religion. ”