Ultimately the Emmys are a popularity contest.

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.

I think George W. Bush has a warm, engaging personality. But, you know, the presidency is more than just a popularity contest.

Art has never been a popularity contest.

The car is a character in the piece - I've never liked the car, I submitted to it's objectionable popularity.

Gore will not win a popularity contest, he will not win a personality contest, but he can win an idealogical battle, and he can win a battle of experience.

Second, the President's popularity has not translated into increased support for the Republican party or for the policies and approaches on domestic policy championed by the President.

The presidency is more than a popularity contest.

Goodness means the highest degree of popularity.

I can analyse the trajectory of my popularity and find out why the peak was a peak and the valley was a valley - grapple with it that way - but I prefer not to analyse it that much.

Ultimately the Emmys are a popularity contest.

Mom and Pop were proud of my popularity, but from their point of view, show business was no way to make a living.

I firmly believe that respect is a lot more important, and a lot greater, than popularity.

I think writing about unhappiness is probably the source of my popularity, if I have any-after all, most people are unhappy, don't you think?

Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought; it is only a virtue where men have it whether they will or no.

There is a price for popularity. Critics look for your weaknesses, your flaws, anything that makes the work seem like a fluke and not seem worthy of all the attention it's getting.

I've never personally criticized anyone else's music, but I know that the public's real problem is not the music I make but the perception that I play simple music for money only and for the notoriety and to increase my popularity.

Overall, I think Michael Jordan is the greatest athlete in any particular sport. He dominated the game for the Chicago Bulls and brought the NBA to its greatest peak of popularity.

I think the rising and falling popularity of areas like hard SF and far-future SF is, to a considerable extent, the same as any other fashion.

But having said all of that, that still doesn't account for a lot of the increase in popularity which stems, I think, from Lincoln's personal characteristics.

One of my proudest moments is I didn't sell my soul for the sake of popularity.

The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity.

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.

The popular tendency is to listen approvingly to the most extreme statements and claims of politicians and orators who seek popularity by declaring their own country right in everything and other countries wrong in everything.