I guess in America we’re so sold on this ideal of the perfect, well-adjusted family that is able to confront any conflict and, with true love and understanding, work things through. I’m sure they do...

A lot of times, the choice of the right song will save a scene. Or there will be a scene that’s a little flat and you put in the right song and somehow it just...

Well did you call the hypothetical hardware store and buy a theoretical chainsaw?– Pam to Jessica, True Blood

I think vampires are a timeless powerful archetype that can tap into people’s psyches.

Somebody asked me, ‘Why do people like vampires so much?’ This was right after Obama had been elected and I said, ‘Because we just spent eight years being sucked dry by one.’

I think sexuality is a window into someone’s soul.

When I go home, the last thing I want to do is read about the popular lore of vampires.

‘Six Feet Under’ was about repressing our deepest, most primal impulses, and ‘True Blood’ is about giving full sway to them all the time. In a way they are like yin and yang.

As a culture, we are not comfortable with mortality. We do not accept it the way other cultures do. We cling to youth, and we don’t want to die. It’s like, ‘Well, too bad, we...

We live in a time where there’s an alienation factor. There’s a certain disconnection. We don’t have any real sense of community anymore.

I would say try to tell stories that you care about as opposed to stories that you think will sell.

Television viewing has become for me a completely different experience, because I don’t watch shows on a weekly basis. I wait until the DVD or I TiVo everything and wait until the end of a...

I believe forgiveness is possible for everybody, for everything, but I’m a Buddhist.

I am so spoiled. I cannot watch a show where it gets interrupted for ads. I have to TiVo it and skip through the ads, because the culture of advertising is so false and phony...

‘True Blood’ differs from ‘Six Feet Under’ in that there are way more characters and plot-lines, but fundamentally it’s still about the characters and their emotions.

Depending on what happens with my directing career, I don’t think I’ll stop writing, even if I crash and burn in movies and TV. I’ll go back to plays. Even if I crash and burn...

I’m at the point in my life where I don’t want to work as hard. Actually, I’ve had to take a good hard look at workaholism and it’s effect on one’s mental health.

I’m used to American actors who have a movie career thinking television acting is beneath them.

There are times when I am directing, and there are a couple of moments I didn’t get the way I wanted, but I know I still have other angles to shoot and I have to...

I’m a huge freak, and always have been. I spent the first part of my life trying really desperately not to be one, and it was just a waste of time.

I am a little suspicious of industry paradigms. I feel like so many movies and TV shows feel so familiar because of over-reliance on these paradigms.

I’m aware of ‘Twilight,’ but I’ve never seen the movies or read any of the books. Frankly, the story leaves me cold – why do a vampire story about abstinence?

I certainly feel fortunate in my career to have been able to continue to work in different mediums. I don’t ever want to be the guy who gets really good at one thing and just...

I certainly believe that what we perceive as humans is just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t necessarily believe in vampires or werewolves or that kind of thing, but I believe there is definitely...

We live in a patriarchal culture. It’s okay for women to be objectified but not for men.

Well, here’s the thing with relationships on ‘True Blood’: Once they happen then you have to throw a monkey-wrench into them, because to have people be happy is not that exciting.

Death is a companion for all of us, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we’re aware of it or not, and it’s not necessarily a terrible thing.

I think the world is a place for oddballs and freaks. I’m only interested in oddballs and freaks as characters.

I’m not saying that being gay is what defines me, but at the same time, if you feel like you have to hide it, then it becomes what defines you. You keep it hidden, and...

I don’t believe in any particular definition of the afterlife, but I do believe we’re spiritual creatures and more than our biology and that energy cannot be destroyed, but can change. I don’t know what...

Most of us live in artificial environments and then we go to work in artificial environments and the world becomes something that you see through a window.

I always choose to look, as much as one can, at the supernatural not being something that exists outside of nature, but a deeper, fundamental heart of nature that perhaps humans… have lost touch with....

As a writer, it’s fun to create. And once you get into a long-running show with very established characters and a very established tone and format, after a while it’s a really great job, but...

I’m 53. I don’t care about high school students. I find them irritating and uninformed.

I will say that the environment I grew up in was not the most progressive.

It’s hard for me to get interested in stories that ignore death, which is what American marketing culture would like to do: pretend that death doesn’t exist, that you can buy immortality; just buy these...

I love to direct! I get really jazzed by directing, but directing is not the same kind of personal expression, the same kind of personal intimate expression that writing is. Because when you’re directing, you’re...

I was conveniently bisexual for a long time, and then I went, ‘Come on, who am I kidding?’ And I have to say, it was the single biggest step I took toward emotional well-being, to...

Happy relationships are boring. We all want them in our own life. But I don’t want to watch them on TV.

Death showed up in my life very early on, so I’m aware of it. If you look at most of the things I write there’s a sort of contemplation of mortality – although ‘True Blood’...

I think it’s very difficult, and it requires a tremendous amount of spiritual integrity and discipline, to not be a narcissist in a culture that encourages it every step of the way.

You cannot hold a child accountable to the same standards that you hold an adult accountable to.

The difference between film and TV is the pace. You don’t have the leisure of time in television.

I need to feel like the work I’m doing is not necessarily important, but meaningful, at least to me, because otherwise it just becomes a day job. It just becomes factory work and I get...

I’m a Buddhist, so one of my biggest beliefs is, ‘Everything changes, don’t take it personally.’

I’d seen ‘Interview with A Vampire’ and saw Dracula movies growing up, but I never thought, ‘I love vampires; I have to do a show about vampires.’

I definitely see the good in people. Certainly in my own life I strive to be somebody who is functional and well adjusted and can face conflict in a non-emotional and non-destructive way, and those...

It’s easy to look at the vampires as a metaphor for any feared or misunderstood group. It’s also easy to look at them as a metaphor for a shadow organization that says one thing and...

You know, I’m gay and I grew up being aware of that at a very early age, in a fairly repressed family.

Not everything is going to be successful. To strive for that is really naive. You just do the best you can do.