Latest Aaron Sorkin Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I'm terribly afraid of failure. When your identity is wrapped up in writing and you've written something that doesn't work, it's a tough pill to swallow.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Writing, Identity, Tough

  Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

• I don't have personal experience and knowledge about anything but theater. I've been tutored very well on the subject, but ultimately I'm going back to the rules of drama. There are genres that I like as an audience member that I can't write as a writer. I can't write crime, and I like a good thriller as much as anybody.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Drama, Writing, Crime

  Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

• Larry David called me and said, "You can never watch The West Wing again. Either the show is going to be great without you and you're going to be miserable, or the show is going to be less than great without you and you're going to be miserable." So I had them send a tape of the first episode that I didn't do. I put it in the VCR and I don't think I got 15 seconds in before I leapt up and slammed it off! It felt like I was watching somebody make out with my girlfriend. I've never seen a West Wing episode in seasons five, six or seven.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Girlfriend, Thinking, Miserable

  Source: www.empireonline.com

• It was hard saying goodbye to the character and harder saying goodbye to the actor. When rumours started going around that Rob Lowe might be leaving I got an email from Josh Malina asking if I'd be interested in an actor who was cheaper and not as good looking. I wrote back, "Always", and that was that.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Goodbye, Character, Leaving

  Source: www.empireonline.com

• My preference would have been to not go back on the air after 9\11, at all until the time felt right but that wasn't an option.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Source: www.empireonline.com

• I wrote the show West Wing for the two years before and the two years after 9/11. Suddenly everyone in the world had been through something that our characters had not been through; the whole trajectory of the world had changed. Yet our show took place in a parallel universe. I wasn't really sure what to do about this. In no one's wildest dreams did it occur that an event like this could possibly happen.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Dream, Character, World

  Source: www.empireonline.com

• I got into dialogue because my parents began taking me to see plays from when I was very young. Too young, often, to understand the play I was watching: Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf when I was nine years old; That Championship Season when I was ten years old. But I loved the sound of dialogue; it sounded like music to me and I wanted to imitate that sound.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Parent, Championship, Dialogue

  "The Definitive History Of The West Wing: Part 2. Inauguration". www.empireonline.com.

• I do enjoy the fact that we don't have a king or queen; we have a person with a very unusual temp job for a few years. My favorite moments on the show were always showing the intersection of the person and the job. Any time Bartlet from the West Wing could be something other than the president - a father, or a husband, or a son, or a friend.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Husband, Father, Son

  "The Definitive History Of The West Wing: Part 2. Inauguration". www.empireonline.com.

• Television from its inception had the number one goal to alienate as few people as possible. That's why if you look at 1950s, 1960s American sitcoms, the characters don't live any place in particular, religion is never discussed, politics is never discussed, you never really know what anyone's job is; nothing that could make these people seem different from you is ever discussed.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Character, Goal, People

  "The Definitive History Of The West Wing: Part 2. Inauguration". www.empireonline.com.

• Pretty much up until The West Wing, our leaders had always been portrayed in popular culture as either Machiavellian or dolts. But I thought, "What if we show a group of people who are highly competent, they're going to lose as much as they win, but we're going to understand that they wake up every morning wanting to do good?" That was really the spirit behind The West Wing.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Morning, Winning, People

  "The Definitive History Of The West Wing: Part 2. Inauguration". www.empireonline.com.

• I'd been concerned all along that the character of the president in the West Wing pilot would throw the ensemble out of whack, that that character would simply take up all the oxygen in a room. I wanted to hold off bringing this character in until the last possible moment.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Character, President, Moments

  Source: www.empireonline.com

• To use a basketball metaphor, West Wing cast was a group that liked to pass as much as they liked to shoot.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Basketball, Metaphor

  Source: www.empireonline.com

• I like workplace shows and White House was a very glamorous workplace to set a show in; it appealed to a sense of romanticism and idealism that I have.

  Aaron Sorkin

  House, Workplace, Glamorous

  Source: www.empireonline.com

• The Monica Lewinsky scandal was happening at the very time I was writing the West Wing pilot and it was hard, at least for Americans, to look at the White House and think of anything but a punch line. Plus a show about politics, a show that took place in Washington, had just never worked before in American television. So the show was delayed for a year.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Writing, Thinking, House

  Source: www.empireonline.com

• The hardest thing for me is getting started. If I'm writing a script, really 90 per cent of it would be just walking around, climbing the walls, just trying to put the idea together. Then the final 10 per cent would be writing it.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Wall, Writing, Trying

  "The Definitive History Of The West Wing" by James Dyer, www.empireonline.com.

• I had never thought of doing television. But my agent wanted me to meet John Wells, who had had a lot of success producing ER and China Beach. The night before the meeting, some friends were over for dinner and Akiva Goldsman and I slipped downstairs to the basement so we could sneak a cigarette. He said, "You know what would make a good television series? That." And he was pointing at The American President poster. He said, "There doesn't have to be a romance, just focus on a senior staffer."

  Aaron Sorkin

  Senior, Beach, Night

  Source: www.empireonline.com

• The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one - America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Country, America, World

  Source: voidau.com

• One of the biggest challenges in the past for me in working on the networks was that audiences have grown accustomed to television being something that keeps you company-background music, something that you have on while you're flipping through a magazine, cooking dinner, talking on the phone, putting the kids to bed.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Kids, Past, Cooking Dinner

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I want to convey that I'm crazy about the Kardashians - but I'm not sure which is which.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Crazy, Want, Not Sure

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• With a television series, there's a hard deadline, and so you have to write even when you're not writing well.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Writing, Television, Deadline

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think it's up to writers to write stuff that is compelling enough that people want to watch.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Writing, Thinking, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• The downside to series television is that the schedule is ferocious. It constantly feels like you have a midterm due that you haven't started yet.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Schedules, Television, Like You

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• What's interesting, is that I've found that the more accomplished a director is, the more secure they are in giving direction that sounds incredibly unsophisticated.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Giving, Interesting, Sound

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• That's a very real feeling - that I don't have a story to tell. I'm not a pure storyteller. I have a tough time with story.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Real, Tough Times, Feelings

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Humans know when it's not a good story. Unless you do this for a living, you may not know exactly why you don't like a story, but you can't fool an audience ever. They know when you have it and they know when you don't.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Stories, May, Fool

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com