Ryan Murphy

“Larry Kramer wisely realized so early on that to change the world, people have to know you. If they know you and see that we are all the same - that we all have normal hearts - that's the first step. I'm both amazed at the progress and amazed at how far we have to go.”

“I would much rather have watched Jill Clayburgh in 'An Unmarried Woman' than 'Star Wars.' Even though I saw that movie when I was 11, I related emotionally to being left and thrown in a trash can on the side of the road. Her damage - I got it. I didn't understand Han Solo at all.”

“I'm passionate about actors, and I'm passionate about showing actors in different lights.”

“I think John Landgraf sees things in the same way I do. We see eye to eye on a lot.”

“Just because you have a baby on your hip - or one on the way or two at home - doesn't mean you can't go after your dreams.”

“I only wrote two fan letters in my life. One was to Bette Davis. And one was to Ron Palillo, who played Horshack on 'Welcome Back, Kotter.' And Ron did not write me back, but Bette Davis did.”

“It's a weird thing, my shows. I don't know how to describe it, but I feel because I go about the casting process so slowly that it does feel like an instant family.”

“I formed this thing called the Half Foundation, and what I tried to do is quantify hiring practices in Hollywood. Half the population is women, so half of the storytellers should be women. Fifty percent of all the directors in my company are women, and it will forever be that way.”

“I'd never had a mentor in Hollywood. Men have always been in control of the business, and they usually mentor people who are like them - but two inches shorter.”

“All the big successes of my career have been ideas that, on paper, you think, 'Well nobody's going to go for this because that genre is so dead.'”

“I do work with a lot of women in my company, and I write a lot of roles for women over 40. I think, in 'Feud' alone, we have 15 roles for women over 40, which I'm very proud about.”

“All the things I have done at one point or another have fallen out of fashion, and there's nothing better than trying to bring something back to life.”

“I started off as a journalist when I was young and I did not get paid unless I wrote three stories a day.”

“Tone is everything in TV.”

“I had a very rocky, difficult, emotional childhood with my parents.”

“I think that the work that Bette Davis and Joan Crawford did was truly extraordinary, and that's their legacy. Not the other petty stuff.”

“I feel every day that everything I create - everything I do - I want it to be a risk.”

“You know, I'm very particular about my sheets. They have to be one hundred percent cotton, with a high thread count. Only cotton. No flannel.”

“I've always been sort of, 'I love it,' or, 'I hate it,' and I think, as a result, I've always been a polarizing person. You either love me or you hate me. There's not a lot of 'Hmmm.'”

“I love crispy, cool sheets.”