I Consider Plot A Necessary Intrusion On

That's A Very Real Feeling - That I Don't Have A Story To Tell. I'm Not A Pure Storyteller. I Have A Tough Time With Story.

I Wrote The Show West Wing For The Two Years Before And The Two Years After 9/11. Suddenly Everyone In The World Had Been Through Something That Our Characters Had Not Been Through; The Whole Trajectory Of The World Had Changed. Yet Our Show Took Place In A Parallel Universe. I Wasn't Really Sure What To Do About This. In No One's Wildest Dreams Did It Occur That An Event Like This Could Possibly Happen.

Roxy Sorkin, Your Father Just Won The Academy Award. I'm Going To Have To Insist On Some Respect From Your Guinea Pig.

I Would Love For People To Think That I Am As Quick, Clever, Smart And Heroic As The Characters That I Write, But Those Characters Are Characters.

If You Can Socialize From The Privacy Of Your Desk At Night In A Dark Room, You Can Be A Smoother, Cooler, Funnier, Sexy, More Everything Person Than You Actually Are In Real Life.