When we went on the air, I didn’t want to be interrupted for an act-one curtain.

I cook my own breakfast on my hot plate.

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...

Even when they don’t know who Nixon was, these shows will continue to play.

I sometimes suspect that half our difficulties are imaginary and that if we kept quiet about them they would disappear.

Being broke is a temporary situation. Being poor is a state of mind.

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,...

Nobody doubts my partisanship, but a lot of the activity is nonpartisan.

My thing was to be the man who makes his little 30 or 40 million a year and still get a cheeseburger and fries and don’t worry about an autograph.

Imagery is like music.

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.

A story never looks as good as when the other fellow buys it.

You’re in the business – when you’re a writer, producer, director – to get ratings.

I don’t care about how many times somebody recognizes my face.

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.

Granted, the writers, directors, producers, and that community make a great deal of money. But they might be choosing to do a whole lot of other things for the living they make.

Most of us believe in trying to make other people happy only if they can be happy in ways which we approve.

Beaver do better work than the Corps of Engineers.

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.

Originally, with all the shows, we went looking for belly laughs.

No person ever gave me nothing but God.

One of the problems of writing is that anyone who commits themselves to that process has to believe that they’re good.

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.

Forget it, Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel.

I realistically eat every hour and 15 minutes. I watch the clock to see when I eat again. I’m almost upset that I’m not eating now.

I like Biggie. Like ‘Pac, he was one of the best rappers in the business. Why would I try to do something to him?

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

I guess because the shows were activist in their own way – the marriage of my public activism and my career activism, you know – people understand me very well. They also understand there’s a...

Knowledge is power only if man knows what facts not to bother with.

Being broke is only a temporary situation.

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

So we gravitated to shows and issues and causes that made people care.

Of all the artists on Death Row, none of them went bankrupt.

Vivid images are like a beautiful melody that speaks to you on an emotional level. It bypasses your logic centers and even your intellect and goes to a different part of the brain.

I hardly see myself as a futurist.

Credit you give yourself is not worth having.

Every minute this broad spends outside of bed is a waste of time.

I never seen no shootin’. I only know what I heard and what I read. I had no involvement.

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.

I stop and look at traffic accidents. I won’t hang around, but when I hear something is terrible, as bad as it is, I’ve gotta look at it.

Almost any game with any ball is a good game.

Being poor is a frame of mind.

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.

That’s the heart of it: My shows were not that controversial with the American people. They were controversial with the people who think for the American people.

People don’t know how hard it is to have your own business.

You have to give directors and cinematographers a word blueprint for visuals, but I had to learn that from experience.

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

You can’t have any successes unless you can accept failure.

Love hurts more than hate.

I’m in prison. But my heart and mind is free. Gangsta haters on the streets are doing more time than me. They need 30 police escorts with them every time they walk down the street.