To quote General Patton, ‘I don’t like paying for the same real estate twice.’ If it’s not done, you say, ‘This is not what we agreed on.’

Drama or comedy programming is still the surest way for advertisers to reach a mass audience. Once that changes, all bets are off.

You have this disturbing reality that there are a lot of people who would rather say, ‘I’m on strike’ than ‘I’m unemployed.’ And those are the people who vote for strikes.

I’m immensely saddened by the passing of not only a friend and colleague, but a legendary figure of 20th-century show business,

It was like in Samoa when they’d put up a movie screen on the beach and show movies and the locals would run behind the sheet to see where the people went. It was pretty...

We are all saddened by the loss of Gregory Hines, one of the most versatile performers of his generation, … Law & Order.

The story drove the book. That had a very seminal effect on the way I saw writing and storytelling. If you can set a character in a story that is compelling and has a backbone,...

I don’t think you can really make television based on what you think audiences want. You can only make stories that you like, because you have to watch it so many times.

Crime is a constantly renewable resource. Every day people continue to kill each other in bizarre and unfathomable ways. Even if murder goes down by double digits, there are still thousands of people killed in...

It’s a very competitive business. And everybody I know who does it is extremely competitive, but they show it or don’t show it in different ways.

Conviction

The threat to free television. The reason television is free is because it is a life support system for commercials. That fundamental aspect is about to change.

I get bored with establishing shots of people getting out of cars and walking into buildings, getting into elevators and then 45 seconds later they have a line.

I don’t think the franchise has a wear-out factor. There are gonna be great stories forever. My only mantra is: Keep the brand healthy.

It’s show business. No show, no business.

I’m certainly not gonna say that there should never be another show with Law & Order in the title.

There are other options out there, after all, like read a book, go on the Internet, rent a movie.

I hardly see myself as a futurist.

We stopped doing that about six episodes in — even though we’d built nice big sets — because it just stopped the storytelling cold.

People do have viewing patterns, and you disrupt those at your own peril. That’s something that everybody learned after 1988. The numbers have gone down every year since that strike. Big time.

No blood on the floor.

There are professional negotiators working for the writers and the actors, but basically you’ve got the writers and actors negotiating against businessmen. That’s why you get rhetoric.

I think most people don’t react well to being screamed at. It’s counterproductive.

She is really appreciated as being very emblematic,

People recognize certain things, like ‘D’ means ‘this dialogue stinks.’ We’re dealing with shows that are written here, shot in New York and posted back here. Accurate communication is a necessity.

It’s multiple storylines, and it’s character-driven, which is the exact opposite of what the branded shows are.

There was an interesting article in Los Angeles Magazine about women directors. A woman director makes one bad independent film and her career is over. Guys tend to get an opportunity to learn from their...

I try to just communicate what I want done as clearly and simply as possible.

We’re not going to dwell on something that happened three years ago on another show. We’re not going to ignore it, but we’re not going to service it.

T.V. has to be edited and scored and everything else, and if you don’t like what you’re watching it can be a very painful process.

It’s like a long-term marriage. There are stresses and strains intermittently, but we are kind of stuck with each other.

TIVO executives stand up and say, ‘Well, we’re not getting rid of commercials, but we are letting them fast forward, because people like commercials, and if they see one that they like they stop and...

I’ve been on the air continuously at NBC for 21 years. So this is an extraordinarily long relationship, and it’s like a very long-term marriage. I mean, there are stresses and strains intermittently, but we’re...

I was raised not to be rude, but I also try to get the best work out of people.

When you have four shows on a network, some decisions you’re going to agree with and other decisions you’re going to violently disagree with. You’ve heard me violently disagree with other decisions (and) it has...

The agendas on the management side of the table now are not in sync like they used to be because you have vastly different entities supplying programming to networks.

TV is not about ideas. It’s about execution. And writing and casting. That’s why most of TV drama’s biggest stars have been character actors, not romantic leads. Peter Falk. Telly Savalas. Angela Lansbury. They can...

I was incredibly upset, disappointed, dismayed, any other adjectives that you could care to add.

I was running Miami Vice, but it wasn’t my show so I got to learn an enormous amount. You were basically getting trained to have your own show.

If it bears fruit in France, it’s a pump-primer for the rest of the world.

The environment doesn’t change that radically. You are still going to go home at night and NBC is going to be there, ABC and CBS will still be there.

Advertising is the art of the tiny. You have to tell a complete a story and deliver a complete message in a very encapsulated form. It disciplines you to cut away extraneous information.

Well, television has become an unforgiving environment and you don’t get to make mistakes. That was the great thing about Universal in the old days.

Everyone connected with ‘Conviction’ is excited about being part of the breaking wave of a brand new technology.

I would say that if you really wished to be a working member of the community, don’t go out on strike because then there’s no work and no potential of work.

The three [‘Law & Order’] shows have turned TNT into the number one network on cable and USA the number two network on cable,

The great strikes of the ’50s and ’60s were bloody and awful, but at that point there were only three networks. Everyone came back to work.

And the consumer doesn’t care. They don’t watch networks, they watch TV shows.

When it went on the air, the sales department hated it. It was the highest advertising pullout show in the history of NBC. At the early focus groups, people were saying, ‘Who are these people?...

Alias’ sold [in syndication] for $175,000 an episode; ‘Criminal Intent’ sold for 1,100 percent more. Do the math,