Aaron Sorkin Quotes

“A news organization has a much different responsibility. I might not be telling you the whole story. I might not be telling you a story in a manner that is properly sophisticated.”

“And my friends, you ain't seen nothin' yet.”

“Any time you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written. That's what I look for.”

“As long as you keep one foot in the real world while the other foot's in a fairy tale, that fairy tale is going to seem kind of attainable.”

“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.”

“Certainly, last year we did an episode about the census and sampling versus a direct statistic. You just said the word 'census,' and people fall asleep.”

“Decisions are made by those who show up.”

“Don't ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world, it's the only thing that ever has.”

“Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.”

“I am all for everyone having a voice; I just don't think everyone has earned the microphone. And that's what the Internet has done.”

“I am truly at my happiest not when I am writing an aria for an actor or making a grand political or social point. I am at my happiest when I've figured out a fun way for somebody to slip on a banana peel.”

“I consider plot a necessary intrusion on what I really want to do, which is write snappy dialogue.”

“I don't have a great instrument. I don't have the kind of ungodly control over my voice and body that great actors have. And I've worked with enough great actors to know that I'm not one.”

“I grew up in the theatre. It's where I got my start. Writing a television drama with theatrical dialogue about the theatre is beyond perfection.”

“I had a lot of survival jobs. One was for the Witty Ditty singing-telegram company. I was in the red-and-white stripes with the straw boater hat and kazoo. Balloons. Even when you're sleeping on a friend's couch, you have to pay some kind of rent.”

“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.”

“I like writing idealistically, romantically and swashbucklingly.”

“I love writing but hate starting. The page is awfully white, and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time, but those days are over, giftless. I'm not your agent, and I'm not your mommy; I'm a white piece of paper. You wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't. I'll go peaceable-like.”

“I spend most of my days pacing around, muttering that I have no ideas, feeling like I'm walking a plank.”

“I think I would have done very well as a writer in the Forties. I think the last time America was a great country was then or not long after. It was before Vietnam, before Watergate.”

“I think socializing on the Internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality.”

“I'll get cast occasionally as sort of the jerk version of myself, and I have fun doing that. But it's really better for everyone if I stay behind the camera.”

“I'm more comfortable writing traditional protagonists. But 'Steve Jobs' and 'The Social Network' have antiheroes. I like to write antiheroes as if they're making their case to God about why they should be allowed into heaven. I have to find something in that character that is like me and write to that.”

“I'm very physical. When I'm writing, I'm playing all the parts; I'm saying the lines out loud, and if I get excited about something – which doesn't happen very often when I'm writing, but it's the greatest feeling when it does – I'll be out of the chair and walking around, and if I'm at home, I'll find myself two blocks from my house.”

“I've always thought that there is a great female James Bond movie to be done. I'm not literally calling her Jane Bond, I mean, but a female secret agent.”

“I've got plenty of quirks. I go to an office early in the morning. Early in the morning is really good writing time. I take anywhere between six to eight showers a day. I'm not exaggerating. I'm not a germaphobe: it's all about a fresh start.”

“I've loved every minute I've spent in television. And I've had much more failure, as traditionally measured, than success in television. I've done four shows, and only one of them was the 'West Wing.”

“I've never written anything that I haven't wanted to write again. I want to, and still am, writing 'A Few Good Men' again. I didn't know what I was doing then, and I'm still trying to get it right. I would write 'The Social Network' again if they would let me, I'd write 'Moneyball' again. I would write 'The West Wing' again.”

“If I am writing a movie and I am stuck, I can call the studio and tell them it's delayed. You can't do that with television – you have air dates to meet.”

“If the characters on 'The West Wing' were watching a TV show wherein a character like Trump was leading in the polls, they wouldn't find it believable.”