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" People talk about the plots and what happened, and they see your tricks a mile away. "
Terence Winter
Your
Away
People
Related Quotes:
" Any abhorrent behavior is more interesting to me. I'm always amazed when somebody asks me, 'Why don't you write something about nice people?' Because nice people are boring, that's why. "
Terence Winter
Nice
Me
Interesting
" Does 'Jersey Shore' make me sad for humanity that this is what's passing for entertainment? Well, this is a business, and if that's what millions of people want to watch, I can't fault someone for producing it. "
Terence Winter
Business
Sad
People
" When Prohibition was first enacted in 1920, most people stockpiled alcohol, thinking they'd have enough to last them for years. By 1923, that was starting to run out, so your average person started to rely more and more on criminals. "
Terence Winter
Run
Thinking
People
" I'm always amazed by writers who say, 'Oh you know I had a half hour so I sat down and wrote a little bit.' I just need a real big chunk of time to sit down and focus. That's my process. "
Terence Winter
Time
Need
Focus
" If I hear an interesting turn of phrase on TV, I'll repeat it back - I just like to roll it around on my tongue. The same goes for dialog: I'll either speak it aloud or whisper it. I definitely sit in front of my computer and mutter. People have mentioned it. "
Terence Winter
Speak
Tongue
People
" It used to be that you had to do a certain number of episodes to hit syndication in order to try to keep a show on, because it's important to the network because it sells good commercial time. That's really not how HBO does things. "
Terence Winter
Show
Important
You
" I'm not really gangsta. Not at all. I just write about them. It's fun to pretend, at least on paper. But in real life, not so much. "
Terence Winter
Real Life
Real
Paper
" I started with the book 'Boardwalk Empire' and then immersed myself in the history of Atlantic City, World War I, the temperance movement, Prohibition, pop culture. I even read the news and magazines of the period just to soak in it. That was before I even started thinking of the story. "
Terence Winter
Myself
War
History
" Any distraction tends to get in the way of being an effective gangster. "
Terence Winter
Effective
Gangster
Way
" I have a rule: I will not alter the basic history of a real-life character to suit our fictional needs in a big way. "
Terence Winter
History
Will
Suit
" J. Edgar Hoover very famously denied the existence of organized crime up until the Appalachian Meeting, I think, in 1957. It was interesting to me that he clearly had to know that there was such a thing as organized crime and organized criminals as far back as the '20s. "
Terence Winter
Know
Interesting
Me
" To get to work with my idol, Martin Scorsese, has just been lovely - the highlight of my career. "
Terence Winter
Lovely
Career
Idol
" I've had ideas for romantic comedies, but it would be a much more darkly comic version than what usually sells tickets. "
Terence Winter
Ideas
Comic
Than
" In TV, writers generally are the show runners, and they have enormous control over everything. In feature films, very often the writer will turn in a script and never be heard from again. "
Terence Winter
Control
Turn
Everything
" With an interesting character, there's always something to say. "
Terence Winter
Interesting
Character
Say
" There's nothing funnier for me than taking two characters and throwing them into a pressure cooker and letting them turn on each other. Especially if they already tend to be loud, aggressive, alpha types. That's sort of everything from 'The Honeymooners' to 'Goodfellas' to 'The Sopranos.' "
Terence Winter
Everything
Pressure
Nothing
" I'm not interested in someone's credits. Let me see who you are, and tell me a story of your life. "
Terence Winter
Story
Someone
You
" Critics who do the weekly recap, I find that kind of absurd. That's like reviewing chapters in a novel. "
Terence Winter
Like
Who
Absurd
" First and foremost, you want to be truthful as a storyteller. "
Terence Winter
Storyteller
Truthful
Want
" It's challenging, in a way, but if you depict anyone with all the colors of human emotion and show those moments - with their families, with their children - the worst of us have elements of real humanity. "
Terence Winter
Moments
Children
Colors
" I was a big fan of the show 'Deadwood' on HBO, which was created by David Milch. And as soon as I heard that all of those characters on Deadwood were based on real people, the first thing I did was Google everybody. "
Terence Winter
Big
Real
People
" I think people, whether they realize they're doing it or not, seek out distractions to take their minds off what they know is bad behavior. "
Terence Winter
People
Think
Behavior
" I've always thought that when they say ignorance is bliss, the converse to that is that knowledge is hell. The more you know, the bleaker things can get. "
Terence Winter
Knowledge
You
Ignorance
" I'm not exaggerating when I say 'Taxi Driver' was the movie that stopped me in my tracks. That was the first time it got me thinking about movies. "
Terence Winter
Time
First
Me
" If you lose your house and your life savings to a broker, you'd probably throw them in the same category as the worst gangsters in history. Everybody's definition of carnage and evil is different. "
Terence Winter
Life
Evil
You
" I was always interested in the 1920s and the gangster world, in general. "
Terence Winter
World
General
Gangster
" Very often at the end of 'The Sopranos' you get the feeling that its not under control, you should be very worried, and life is kind of really, really messed up at lot of times. It leaves you feeling very disconcerted. That was kind of the point of it. "
Terence Winter
End
Control
You
" One FBI agent told us early on that on Monday morning, they would get to the FBI office, and all the agents would talk about 'The Sopranos', having the same conversation about the show, but always from the flip side. "
Terence Winter
Morning
Conversation
Early
" We may live like saints, but when it comes to our fantasy life, everybody's got a little larceny in their soul. "
Terence Winter
Live
Like
Life
" If you're truly depicting human behavior in an honest way, it is a lot of miscommunication, non-communication, paranoia, passive aggressiveness. People don't finish sentences. They don't say what they mean. They lie to each other. They take credit for things that are actually other people's ideas. "
Terence Winter
Ideas
Say
You