Aaron Sorkin

“I have a lot of respect for people who are great at ad-libbing and for writers and directors who are able to create a scene in which that works. Judd Apatow is fantastic at it. But as an audience member, I like the sound of something that's been written - I like it to sound written.”

“I find television, and particularly live television, very romantic: the idea that there is this small group of people, way up high, in a skyscraper in the middle of Manhattan, beaming this signal out into the night.”

“As long as you keep one foot in the real world while the other foot's in a fairy tale, that fairy tale is going to seem kind of attainable.”

“I desperately need the love of complete strangers. That's one reason I overtip. I love when skycaps, waiters, and valets are happy to see me.”

“When a movie is being rolled out, the studio publicists and all our individual publicists get together and come up with bullet points and talking points - 'Make sure you stay away from this,' and 'Don't say that quite that way, because that quote can be taken out of context,' and that kind of thing.”

“I am all for everyone having a voice; I just don't think everyone has earned the microphone. And that's what the Internet has done.”

“I've always thought that there is a great female James Bond movie to be done. I'm not literally calling her Jane Bond, I mean, but a female secret agent.”

“Oratory should raise your heart rate. Oratory should blow the doors off the place.”

“A news organization has a much different responsibility. I might not be telling you the whole story. I might not be telling you a story in a manner that is properly sophisticated.”

“I like writing idealistically, romantically and swashbucklingly.”

“Television is a visual medium. You have to create some kind of visual interest. And it's entertainment for your eyes.”

“Toby Zeigler: There's literally no one in the world I don't hate right now.”

“If I am writing a movie and I am stuck, I can call the studio and tell them it's delayed. You can't do that with television - you have air dates to meet.”

“I think socializing on the Internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality.”

“The upside of web-based journalism is that everybody gets a chance. The downside is that everybody gets a chance.”

“There have been times - and not just on 'The Newsroom,' but on 'The West Wing,' 'Sports Night,' 'Studio 60'... - where it was hard to look the cast and crew in the eye, when I put a script on the table that I knew just wasn't good enough.”

“We're about to shoot an episode on Air Force One, for instance, and we're going to take liberties, small liberties, with Air Force One, as we take small liberties with our White House set.”

“It's nice that HBO is in business with the audience and not with the advertisers. There's a difference.”

“The world can move or not by changing some words.”

“Not all paintings are abstract; they're not all Jackson Pollock. There's value in a photograph of a man alone on a boat at sea, and there is value in painting of a man alone on a boat at sea. In the painting, the painting has more freedom to express an idea, more latitude in being able to elicit certain emotion.”