It's nice that HBO is in business with the audience and not with the advertisers. There's a difference.

But HBO is less interested in how many people are watching than in how much the people who are watching are liking the show. They didn't set up their business model to make writers happy. It's just a nice unintended consequence.

I have a lot of respect for people who are great at ad-libbing and for writers and directors who are able to create a scene in which that works. Judd Apatow is fantastic at it. But as an audience member, I like the sound of something that's been written - I like it to sound written.

Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.

Writing never comes easy. The difference between Page 2 and Page Nothing is the difference between life and death.

There's three networks you want to be on: It's either AMC, HBO, or Showtime.