The heart and soul of network programming is series programming, the weekly repetition of characters you like having in your house.

It was like in Samoa when they'd put up a movie screen on the beach and show movies and the locals would run behind the sheet to see where the people went. It was pretty grim.

As soon as you become complacent your show gets canceled.

If you're going to vote on a television contract, there is a certain rationality to saying that the same structures that are applied to Health Plan participation should be placed on the right to vote on a strike.

It's show business. No show, no business.

I would say that if you really wished to be a working member of the community, don't go out on strike because then there's no work and no potential of work.

And the consumer doesn't care. They don't watch networks, they watch TV shows.

I think most people don't react well to being screamed at. It's counterproductive.

There are other options out there, after all, like read a book, go on the Internet, rent a movie.

I don't think you can really make television based on what you think audiences want. You can only make stories that you like, because you have to watch it so many times.

You have this disturbing reality that there are a lot of people who would rather say, 'I'm on strike' than 'I'm unemployed.' And those are the people who vote for strikes.

People recognize certain things, like 'D' means 'this dialogue stinks.' We're dealing with shows that are written here, shot in New York and posted back here. Accurate communication is a necessity.

Everybody knows things are not the same. The people running the TV end of a major vertically integrated company know how much money a successful show can make.

There are professional negotiators working for the writers and the actors, but basically you've got the writers and actors negotiating against businessmen. That's why you get rhetoric.

I hardly see myself as a futurist.

The most positive step is to try to expand the employment base by making it, if not economically friendly, at least not economically disastrous, for studios to take on deficits.

I get bored with establishing shots of people getting out of cars and walking into buildings, getting into elevators and then 45 seconds later they have a line.

The story drove the book. That had a very seminal effect on the way I saw writing and storytelling. If you can set a character in a story that is compelling and has a backbone, you draw people in.

The heart and soul of network programming is series programming, the weekly repetition of characters you like having in your house.

The threat to free television. The reason television is free is because it is a life support system for commercials. That fundamental aspect is about to change.

If the scripts are not good, I'll tell somebody, 'This isn't good.'

TIVO executives stand up and say, 'Well, we're not getting rid of commercials, but we are letting them fast forward, because people like commercials, and if they see one that they like they stop and watch it.' I mean, please.

The ad revenues still go up because nothing dependably delivers the eyeballs that successful series do.

I do love television. But the business is accelerating and people are not getting the chance to fail.

Advertising is the art of the tiny. You have to tell a complete a story and deliver a complete message in a very encapsulated form. It disciplines you to cut away extraneous information.

I try to just communicate what I want done as clearly and simply as possible.

There was an interesting article in Los Angeles Magazine about women directors. A woman director makes one bad independent film and her career is over. Guys tend to get an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

Their argument is that most shows are losers, which is true, but it's also disingenuous to say, 'We are not going to take the risk unless it is totally covered by the few successful shows that are out there.'

People do have viewing patterns, and you disrupt those at your own peril. That's something that everybody learned after 1988. The numbers have gone down every year since that strike. Big time.

The agendas on the management side of the table now are not in sync like they used to be because you have vastly different entities supplying programming to networks.

Drama or comedy programming is still the surest way for advertisers to reach a mass audience. Once that changes, all bets are off.

The environment doesn't change that radically. You are still going to go home at night and NBC is going to be there, ABC and CBS will still be there.

I was raised not to be rude, but I also try to get the best work out of people.

When it went on the air, the sales department hated it. It was the highest advertising pullout show in the history of NBC. At the early focus groups, people were saying, 'Who are these people? Why should we watch them?

Thank you to all for your prayers and good wishes. It gave me the strength to persevere and warmed my heart.

Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul.

A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.

A man must be strong in that profession, he must have vigor of body and mind, yet I am all out of breath if I walk up a hill; I have not the heart to crush even a fly.

Well, after I had the heart attack, it was a very simple choice. What the doctor told me I did and I did it religiously. I ate nothing but lean turkey breast or chicken breast or a piece of fish that was very lean. I mean I stayed away from everything.

Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can't have.

The heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good.

When you know something in your heart, you better not be quiet about it. You better speak out about it.

Death comes not to the living soul, nor age to the loving heart.

In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.

If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

There is no persuasiveness more effectual than the transparency of a single heart, of a sincere life.