Every single television product has the ambition to chase ratings, every one of them. Many have other ambitions, for many, ratings are not #1. But my experience on TV, and on the entertainment side, has been entirely ratings-based. When I look at TV I look at ratings. And I never second guess ratings. Never.

I've often wondered what it would have been like if we'd had cable news during the Vietnam War and Watergate.

I have no broadcasting training. No one's ever said to me, 'This is how you read a Teleprompter.' They just pointed to it and said, 'It's over there.'

All men in makeup are playing a part.

In the summer of 2007, I was in New York for some meetings and... I rented a car and just drove to Staten Island to take a glance and remind myself about it. I ended up staying a couple of days there in a hotel and I've been all over the island several times since.

Staten Island is set off completely by itself in its own world, and that's one of the fascinating things about it, dramatically.

When you get off to an African country like Malawi - which is pretty removed from everything and pretty seriously off the grid - and you see the struggle of life that goes on there, it's a completely different thing than what happens here.

The great thing about going to Malawi is I have no contact for at least a week with anything that's happening back in Washington.

If in the script there is an argument about gun control, the most precious document you could produce at 'The West Wing' that week is a passionate, intelligent case against gun control. We know how to do the other one.

If a reader comes across a story that makes them cry, you can be sure that the writer felt every single thing that makes the reader cry.