Alan Ball

“As a culture, we are not comfortable with mortality. We do not accept it the way other cultures do. We cling to youth, and we don't want to die. It's like, 'Well, too bad, we do.'”

“Death showed up in my life very early on, so I'm aware of it. If you look at most of the things I write there's a sort of contemplation of mortality - although 'True Blood' doesn't fall into that. Even though there's such a ridiculously high body count!”

“I don't believe in any particular definition of the afterlife, but I do believe we're spiritual creatures and more than our biology and that energy cannot be destroyed, but can change. I don't know what the afterlife is going to be, but I'm not afraid of it.”

“I believe forgiveness is possible for everybody, for everything, but I'm a Buddhist.”

“Directing is physically exciting because there's a ticking clock, you're working with people, it's very social, it's very enjoyable.”

“We live in a patriarchal culture. It's okay for women to be objectified but not for men.”

“The ego is kind of a big, unwieldy thing. It's not so easily tamed or subdued.”

“It's hard for me to get interested in stories that ignore death, which is what American marketing culture would like to do: pretend that death doesn't exist, that you can buy immortality; just buy these products, and you'll be forever young and happy.”

“It's a lot harder to find fault with the mundane details of daily existence when you really, really know on a cellular level that you're going to go, and that this moment, right now, is life. Life isn't what happens to you in 20 years. This moment, right now, is your life.”

“Well did you call the hypothetical hardware store and buy a theoretical chainsaw?-- Pam to Jessica, True Blood”

“I'm a huge freak, and always have been. I spent the first part of my life trying really desperately not to be one, and it was just a waste of time.”

“I am so spoiled. I cannot watch a show where it gets interrupted for ads. I have to TiVo it and skip through the ads, because the culture of advertising is so false and phony that I just... ugh, you know?”

“Happy relationships are boring. We all want them in our own life. But I don't want to watch them on TV.”

“I try to tell the best story, and the story that has some heart and some genuine terror and some social commentary and some comedy and some romance and some sex and some violence.”

“I think there's a lot of interesting stuff on TV. I feel much more optimistic about TV than I do about movies. There will always be good movies but I think, for the most part, it's always going to be a huge fight to get those movies made. TV is the best place to be as a writer, I think.”

“Ultimately, physical resemblance isn't as important as whether this person can bring this character to life in a way that's compelling and makes me care about what happens to them.”

“If a scene is longer than three pages, it better be for a good reason.”

“I need to feel like the work I'm doing is not necessarily important, but meaningful, at least to me, because otherwise it just becomes a day job. It just becomes factory work and I get really frustrated.”

“Well, here's the thing with relationships on 'True Blood': Once they happen then you have to throw a monkey-wrench into them, because to have people be happy is not that exciting.”

“Vampires are total sexual metaphors; there's just no way around that.”