Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" When you're a writer on a show, your job is to write in the show runner's voice, really. "

Related Quotes:

" The prospect of being a father made me ask myself a question. How do you know what kind of adult your child will turn out to be? And how much can you control that? "

" The first dumb idea was to do it at all - to take 'Fargo,' this beloved classic, and turn it into a television show. The second dumb idea, when you do it and it works, was to throw everything out and start again. "

" Having written for film and television, I had little interest in turning 'The Good Father' into a Hollywood thriller. I was writing a novel, and novels demand that the writer goes deeper, both emotionally and thematically. "

" For some reason, I tend to take on the stuff that people are really passionate about. If you make a list of people you don't want to offend, it's Vonnegut readers, comic book fans, and Coen brothers enthusiasts. "

" What's great is that each medium has a unique set of things that it does and does well. Film is a visual medium, and obviously, you can't fit a whole book into two hours unless you're really economical about it. Obviously, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and on some level, it's sort of true. "

" TV is all about learning to write in someone else's voice, so if you do it long enough without selling your own project, they assume you don't have your own voice; you're just a good mimic. "

" I think people used to read 'War and Peace,' and now they don't; now they sit around with their tablets and watch 'Downton Abbey' and 'Breaking Bad' or whatever, and they want the things that they watch to be better so that they can feel better about themselves for watching it. "

" People, they don't know how to bend; they just break. "

" The idea was always going to be that each year is a stand-alone story, which did make it easier on some level. It also requires the network to have the creative imagination to say, 'This is also 'Fargo,' you know what I mean? "

" I see myself as a first-draft writer, so when I sit down to write something, the first draft is usually pretty close to the end draft. "

" I did some feature work, then tried TV. I was always very aware that the only power that you have is the power of options. If the film industry dries up, then you focus on the TV or the books. For me, it was always about what story do I want to tell next? "

" What success has done is present me with a lot of opportunities, and I haven't necessarily learned to say 'no' as well as I should have. "

" One of the things that I've always appreciated about the 'X-Men' style of storytelling versus other Marvel stories is how fluid the line between good and bad and right and wrong is. "

" In 'The X-Men' world, one can be a hero one day and a villain the next, which means there's a constant battle for a character's soul that's dynamic. I find that really fascinating. "

" I love the idea that the editing room is the final time you write. You should still be creatively solving problems even at that point. It's not really until you're locked that you can call it quits. "

" I'm Kubrick without the O.C.D. "

" Greatness and fiasco is the same. You're reaching for something just out of your grasp, and if you get it, it's great, and if you don't, it's a disaster. "

" Tension is all about, 'Why is this taking so long?' The interesting thing about that is that it's also the tension of comedy. The tension of drama and comedy is similar, and that's why usually you can get a big laugh in a really tense moment because people need that release. "

" I'm a big believer that the structure of stories should reflect the content of the story. "

" Anytime you want to create something different, you have to convince people that it's O.K. 'We'll be O.K. It's going to work out. It's going to be great.' "

" The '50s and the '70s are sort of similar in that they're both times of major paranoia in America. "

" One of the things I've always loved about genre, comic books, science fiction and fantasy is that there's a certain level of playfulness to them, and pure imagination and creativity. "

" I don't think we have to suffer personally to make great art. If you're prepared and organized, and you know what you're looking for, you can make great art and then go home. "

" My feeling is there's a lot of straight drama on television. My goal in life is to try to create something unexpected, and genre is the tool in doing that. "

" The thing that scares us the most is when familiar things operate in unfamiliar ways. "

" I try to approach the film medium as a novelist and the novel medium as a filmmaker on some level. It's that question: Do we think in pictures, or do we think in language? And the novelist believes one thing, and the filmmaker believes another thing - and I'm fascinated by that balance. "

" As for my schedule, I tend to go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning, and I try to be as productive as possible. Some days, I can devote to one specific thing. Other days, it's a catch-all day. "

" I think a writer's first job is to entertain, even in novels: to tell a compelling story that pulls the reader along toward an end. At the same time, the best stories are character-driven. "

" A book is full of ideas. You just live with what you read for so much longer. A lot of the times, nowadays, with a movie or TV show, it's like, 'Oh, it's entertainment!' And you never think about it again. "

" The job at broadcast is to figure out what the dumbest person in the room is going to think. That's not the case at FX. "