Top 40 Aaron Sorkin Quotes

While I was doing ‘The Newsroom,’ I always had the news on on different networks on different TVs around my house and around my office.

Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.

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

Well, I must tell you I write the scripts very close to the bone. So I’m writing episode seven now and couldn’t tell you what happens in episode eight.

When a movie is being rolled out, the studio publicists and all our individual publicists get together and come up with bullet points and talking points – ‘Make sure you stay away from this,’ and ‘Don’t say that quite that way, because that quote can be taken out of context,’ and that kind of thing.

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 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.

My way of getting the best from people on a set is to notice their work, to make every prop master, every seamstress, part of ‘The Newsroom’ or ‘The West Wing’ or ‘Steve Jobs.’

You know, one of the things I like about this world, or at least I like about the way we’re presenting this world, is these issues are terribly complicated – not nearly as black and white as we’re led to believe.

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’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 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.

Don’t try to guess what it is people want and give it to them. Don’t ask for a show of hands. Try your best to write what you like, what you think your friends would like and what you think your father would like and then cross your fingers… The most valuable thing you have is your own voice.

I desperately need the love of complete strangers. That’s one reason I overtip. I love when skycaps, waiters, and valets are happy to see me.

If you lined up 10 writers and asked them to write a movie about Steve Jobs, you’d get 10 very different movies.

Decisions are made by those who show up.

I’m crazy about ‘Breaking Bad,’ but I wouldn’t know how to write an episode of it.

I like writing idealistically, romantically and swashbucklingly.

It’s a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.

Heroes in drama are people who try hard to reach a virtuous ideal. And whether they succeed or fail really doesn’t matter – it’s the trying that counts.

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.

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.

All my heroes wore coats and ties to work. What happened to men wearing hats? Maybe I should bring back hats.

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

When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that’s not going to be me. So when David Fincher comes along and wants to direct ‘The Social Network,’ when Bennett Miller comes along and wants to direct ‘Moneyball,’ or when Danny Boyle wants to direct ‘Jobs’? Hallelujah. I want them directing it.

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.

When I create a TV show, it’s so that I can write it. I’m not an empire builder; my writing staff is usually a combination of two kinds of people – experts in the world the show is set in, and young writers who will not be unhappy if they’re not writing scripts.

Everything can be going well, but if I’m not writing, I’m not happy. When I’m writing well, I’m like a different person.

I do not speak through my characters; it’s not a ventriloquist act.

‘Molly’s Game’ was a true story about a remarkable young woman named Molly Bloom. She was this close to going to the Olympics; she was ranked third in North America in women’s moguls.

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

The Internet, in general, I find troubling. The anonymity has made us all meaner and dumber. This thing that was supposed to bring us closer together, I see it doing the opposite.

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.

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.

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 can’t remember my dreams more than a couple of seconds after I wake up. It’s frustrating because sometimes I dream that I’m watching a really good movie.

It’s important to remember that, first and foremost, if not only, this is entertainment. ‘The West Wing’ isn’t meant to be good for you.

The upside of web-based journalism is that everybody gets a chance. The downside is that everybody gets a chance.

The rules of drama are very much separate from the properties of life. I think that’s especially true of Shakespeare.

There are some screw-ups headed your way. I wish I could tell you that there was a trick to avoiding the screw-ups… but they’re coming for ya. It’s a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.