It would have been nice for Greg to eventually grow into a mature relationship with Laura. He was moving toward that already but then took a turn into the juvenile with Paige.

What I would have liked to do on that show was play a secretary of state who has huge personal business interests throughout the world. That, to me, seems to be more in synch with reality.

There's a certain possessiveness of writers sometimes.

It would have been nice for Greg to eventually grow into a mature relationship with Laura. He was moving toward that already but then took a turn into the juvenile with Paige.

And I have to credit David Jacobs with the opportunities he gave me. He was totally into sharing the creation of characters. David put together a show that told the story of people over many years' time and that was greatly enjoyable. Though nowadays that is frowned upon.

A show like Knots or any other show that can be called a soap opera does terribly in syndication because if you're a viewer and you miss a week you don't know what's going on.

It worked well because Don Murray didn't want to be on Knots anymore.

Ultimately the Emmys are a popularity contest.

Writers are not always right however, but then again, I've been on shows where the actors have complete control and change everything and it's terrible.

When you go to a movie, it's about what's not being said. I tried to bring that to Greg Sumner. It was always about what's not being said.

I didn't care about that because I'm not a diplomatic person to begin with. I just went along with things and did what I wanted to do because I knew they had to shoot their 12 pages a day. And when they realized that I didn't alter the text they really didn't mind what I did.

David was the kind of guy who was totally supportive of the actors and instructed the writing staff to trust the actor's instincts, since after all, it's the actors playing the character.

The West Wing seems to be feeding the myth about how presidential politics are.

I knew with The West Wing that that wasn't going to be for very long, that I was just the red herring.

I try to watch only real things, which basically amounts to C-Span for me. I like real people in real situations. I learn from that.

If you watch Cheers, in 12 years they didn't age a day.

And all of Laura's stuff, what they wrote originally wasn't as good and Constance wound up doing that herself. That was all her stuff, reading to the child, because she had children herself and that's what she would have done.

Even though shows like NYPD Blue are soaps in my opinion, but they're individualized to an extent that you can still follow what's going on if you miss a week.

Donna Mills came on the show as a female antagonist, about a year before, so now they wanted to have a male antagonist. I was cast as a Senator to shake things up.

I would fix other people's lines if they asked me on occasion. The hard part of writing is the architecture of it, getting the story and structuring it. Not the tweaking of lines.

At one time, whenever the hell it was, they wanted a character to come in and stir up the pot. They brought me in for 8-10 episodes and said we'll try it for that.

The business is built on slowing or even stopping the aging process.

I'm trying to find a character that's my age and I can sustain week after week. I'd like to do a series.

Networks don't want a show with a continuing story. There's no backend potential.

Clint Eastwood is aging beautifully. But someone like Burt Reynolds and others are practically destroying their faces in the amount of work they have.

The same issue is happening on a show like Everybody Loves Raymond now, which is in its eighth year and struggling to come up with good stories. It'll be interesting to see how they do. The bottom line is, it starts with the writers and ends with the writers.

I don't play polo anymore because I am too old. But we still have a half a dozen horses - a couple of young horses we are teaching how to play polo and older horses that are real trustworthy when you get them up in the mountains.

As a father and an ex-wrestler, it's a dream come true. To be able to come back and be included in 'WWE 2K17,' it's a huge honor.

If I was on a 'Modern Family' kind of show, and they said, 'You have to say that the burger is $5.55; Have a good day!'... I could do that!

There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.

We know what we are, but not what we may be.

I cried most days working on the first draft. The last scenes were the hardest. I had a feeling where I wanted to end - the exact note - but I couldn't see how to get there. Sarah Murphy, my editor, asked the right questions to help me. I think of 'The Bear' as a hopeful book.

Britain has no divine right to be one of the richest countries in the world.

The bee fertilizes the flower it robs.

I had a dual role: designer and advocate.

Nicole will come up in conversations where it's in a part of the conversation. Or we may be somewhere and I would tell some story about their mother and I. You know, we always honor her birthday.

We are afraid to face the hard questions. We are willing to tackle drugs, crime, and public education only if it doesn't cost us any new taxes.

A love of nature is a consolation against failure.

It is vain to expect a well-balanced government without a well-balanced society.

I would leave my wife for Whataburger.

Owners lavish love on their pets, which is why so many go from non-aggressive pups to being out of control when they're older. People just don't realise their dog must respect them as leader of the pack.

For me, what makes you laugh makes you laugh.

You can speed up your life if you want to that's easy. Winding down is what's hard.

Pity those who nature abuses; never those who abuse nature.

You know that ISIS wants to go in and take over the Vatican? You have heard that. You know, that's a dream of theirs, to go into Italy.

The Goddess of Old Europe and Ancient Crete represented the unity of life in nature, delight in the diversity of form, the powers of birth, death and regeneration.

There is beauty and power in unity. We must be united in heart and mind. One world, one people.

As a general truth, it is safe to say that any picture that produces a moral impression is a bad picture.

Real progress in understanding nature is rarely incremental. All important advances are sudden intuitions, new principles, new ways of seeing.