Dan Schneider

“I used to write sketches. I loved David Letterman in the '80s. I used to write Top 10 lists for him, and I faxed them in anonymously. I'm sure they threw them away.”

“You don't want to hang out day after day with people you don't want to be with.”

“A lot of times people who write sitcoms for the 18 to 49 crowd think writing for kids is easy. It really isn't. First of all, you're very restricted in what you can do.”

“I was 21 and thinking, 'When this 'Head Of The Class' boat ride ends, I don't want to fade off into the sunset. I want to keep working. I want to be involved in the entertainment business.'”

“As everyone who works for me knows, I almost never let the girls wear ponytails on my shows.”

“Publicity ultimately means bigger ratings.”

“I don't think of myself as a guy who writes for kids, I really don't. I try really hard to write a good, solid sitcom.”

“I think the networks used to try to program for kids and family.”

“I took a break to take care of a lot of stuff that I'd let go by the wayside for decades.”

“I had a great relationship with my parents, but there's something about hanging out with your older sibling that just has a whole new level of cool for a kid.”

“I have a rule: Kids get to be the star.”

“By the mid-'80s, I was an actor. I was never super-famous, but I was definitely on the map.”

“I actually wrote an episode of 'Head Of The Class.'”

“Many shows in television have tried to do a Web element, and usually it's dumb. 'iCarly' has set the bar in television and Internet. I don't think there is better example. That may be the most significant thing about it.”

“Casting is what I put at the top of the heap in importance to any show that I do.”

“I never interacted with actors in any way, texting or otherwise, that should make anyone uncomfortable.”

“'iCarly' gives me the luxury of addressing the fans directly. It was a sort of loving nudge to the fans saying, 'We're just a fun little sitcom to make you laugh.' This isn't a heavy-duty soap opera.”

“I think so much of kids' television, kids' entertainment, is done by adults from a looking-back point of view. If we come up with a really great joke that will make me laugh hard and would make my friends laugh, we pitch it aside.”

“I don't want to be an old man some day and look it up and see some episode of one of the shows I did and go, 'ugh,' and be disappointed in myself.”

“I've said from the start that I'm not going to write kiddie sitcoms.”