A biography for David E. Kelleyhasn’t been written yet.
“Chemistry is not anything an executive producer or writer can orchestrate or plan; you just hope for it.”
“When I really have to push and grope and scratch and claw to make a story work, that's a telltale sign that maybe something conceptually isn't right.”
“I think the law changes, which is a nice luxury.”
“But Steven Bochco was smart; he knew that viewers were smart.”
“I don't think I could write a straight drama.”
“I gravitate toward the law, I think, certainly more times than not, because it's our best mechanism for legislating human behavior, and morality, and ethics.”
“For me, I'm happy to succeed on any network.”
“When the stories come easily and the writing process doesn't feel laboring, that's usually a good sign for me.”
“The more lawyers there are, the more people are out there to encourage others not to go to law school.”
“But I do believe that in all my shows, I really enjoy the quirky, the eccentric characters, the ones you don't meet every day.”
“People are out of their home on a Saturday night or they're at the movies or they're at dinner and a lot of the people who flip on the television are doing just that. They may have never seen your show before and you can't count on to your audience to be there week in and week out.”
“I miss Denny Crane.”
“I never thought of myself as a writer.”
“So I think a writer should write what he loves, the people he relates to.”
“We also have issue oriented storylines which are an examination of an issue, be it ethical or social.”
“Some of my high school teachers did remind me that I had an excellent imagination when it came to making up excuses.”
“If you interview people or friends who work with me, they would say I'm private or internal or don't emote a lot. Yet I do it every day for 10 million people. I just don't do it for the 30 people I'm in the room with.”
“My court skills may have atrophied.”
“You've got to honor your relationship with your audience - that they sit down because they want to be entertained. And that doesn't mean you can't provoke them and antagonize them and challenge them in the course of the entertainment as long as you keep the entertainment part of the equation alive.”
“The way I personally work is I like to write what I know, what I feel, and also where I am.”