Stephanie Savage

“One of the great things about the space program is it's super well-documented.”

“All the NASA footage is in the public domain, and it's so beautiful; it's really stunning.”

“'The O.C.' was very challenging.”

“Everybody feels like an outsider at some point in their lives.”

“I was a huge 'Mad Men' fan.”

“We got really close, but it was just too complicated and secretive to shoot at the Met Ball. That would have been the brass ring of 'Gossip Girl' episodes.”

“Every time I've made a big decision in my life, it's been about letting in the possibility that maybe I could do something that I actually wanted to do and not letting people tell me that I should compromise or that it's too big of a dream.”

“That's the really fun thing about writing for series versus just doing a pilot or even doing a feature: you get to live with your actors, and as you learn their voices and they learn your dialog, you're kind of building the characters together.”

“We love stories about identity and acceptance because they're so universal.”

“When I first found out what a show runner was, I thought it was the strangest job I had heard of in my life.”

“I was a huge 'Charlie's Angels' fan when I was a little girl, and I can go back to sitting on my couch in Ottawa, Ontario, watching TV and thinking, 'How do I get to there from here, because that looks way better.'”

“'Lockup,' inside America's supersize prisons on MSNBC, is one of my favorite shows. I get a lot of my inspiration for Blair Waldorf from that show.”

“It was a huge confidence builder to stand in front of 34 21-year-olds and explain something to them every day.”

“To be in a room and have to explain your point of view is a huge skill in Hollywood.”

“When someone's a writer, it's very creative and moody, and you think of someone walking around the office in pajamas thinking of ideas.”

“Coming-of-age stories in high school are exciting because everything that happens during that time is very heightened.”

“I think, anytime there is a strong intellectual connection and people have shared interest, where they enjoy bantering with each other, there is always potential for a romantic spark. That is inherent.”