Quotes

Each course I teach... is like a 12-week universe. It always begins as a big bang, quickly expands with small clumps of students and knowledge forming galaxies and nebulae, lost assignments constituting the dark matter, and then shrinks to a black hole (called the final exam) from which no light, matter, or student can escape.

...for every idea you see on the screen, there were five ideas we threw away that were more interesting and less real, and there were five ideas that we threw away that were more real and less interesting. What you have to get used to as a writer is realizing that most of what you come up with is wrong for the show...We sometimes say that you're not done unless you've cut your favorite scene.

I thrive on complexity, and I think lots of people do. People love puzzles; it's human nature to want to solve puzzles. I personally have more faith than the average writer in people's willingness to be complicated, and so I'm thrilled by what's happened. I'm elated at audiences' willingness to handle complexity. In some sense, I feel like my belief in what people are capable of is being validated.