Movies have to handle time very efficiently. They're about stringing scenes together in the present. Novels aren't necessarily about that.

• My dad had this rock hard body and would work 12- to 13-hour days. The guys he worked with were scrap-iron guys. Nobody on that road crew had read a book in 10 years, but there was something about the way they lived I really admired.
• Truth be told, I'm not an easy man. I can be an entertaining one, though it's been my experience that most people don't want to be entertained. They want to be comforted.
• You just kind of have faith. If that sounds kind of mystical, it's because I really don't know how it works, but I trust that it does. I try to write the way I read, in order to find out what happens next.
• HBO is really famous for hiring good people and staying out of their way until they ask for help, or need it. And that reputation is earned.
• People often ask me how I make things funny. I don't make things funny.
• If you work at comedy too laboriously, you can kill what's funny in the joke.
• I don't think there's a shortage of material in the world. Or in my head. I just pray for continued good health, because I've got other stories to tell.
• About 15 years ago I went though a period of a year or so when I just couldn't find anything good. My wife noticed I was having trouble reading menus. I bought some cheap reading glasses in a drug store. I got home and suddenly all these books that weren't good were good.
• Structure is one of the things that I always hope will reveal itself to me.
• At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.