Be serious. You've got to do the job you were hired to do well, but there's always more you can do. When I was an assistant, I would say to myself, 'You may not be an executive, but act like one.' I would volunteer for any creative assignment - read scripts, do 'coverage,' write notes.

You can't do everything, at the same time, always, and forever. But if you look at your life and your career as a long, winding river, you can get to your destination.

The creative act is like writing a letter. A letter is a project; you don't sit down to write a letter unless you know what you want to say and to whom you want to say it.

It's not that the creative act and the critical act are simultaneous. It's more like you blurt something out and then analyze it.

The only way the gender divide affected me was the social things the younger guy executives could do with their bosses. I don't know what went on in the clubs, because I didn't go. I made sure my work was stellar, and that compensated for whatever social time we weren't spending together.

You're a reader as well as a writer, so write what you'd want to read.