Aaron Sorkin famous quotes

Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day. Civility, respect, kindness, character.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Kindness #Character #Citizens

My resting pulse as a writer is writing idealistically and romantically; aspirationally. My taste lies in quixotic heroes.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Lying #Hero #Writing

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Stealing #Great Writers

When you're writing a movie or a play and writing isn't going well, which is for me the normal condition - it's an exceptional day when suddenly I've got something and it's going well - you can call the studio or the producer or whoever is waiting for it and say, "I know I said I was going to have it in by the end of the summer.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Summer #Writing #Play

The real problem with all drugs is that they work. Fantastically. They're great, right up until the moment they kill you.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Real #Drug #Problem

Perhaps something like Facebook couldn't have been invented by somebody who goes out five nights a week and has a ton of friends and makes friends really easily.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Night #Week

If you close your eyes you can imagine the hackers sitting in a room, combing through the documents to find the ones that will draw the most blood. And in a room next door are American journalists doing the same thing. As demented and criminal as it is, at least the hackers are doing it for a cause. The press is doing it for a nickel.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Eye #Doors #Blood

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.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Clever #Smart #Writing

There are no Asian movie stars
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Stars #Asian #Movie Star

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.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Sexy #Real #Dark

Decisions are made by those who show up.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Decision #Made #Shows

The stuff that I write doesn't work very well as background music. You have to watch it from beginning to end and pay attention as if you were watching a play.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Writing #Play #Watches

An artist’s job is to captivate… if we stumble into truth, we got lucky.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Jobs #Artist #Lucky

Honestly, I don't try to guess at what most people want. I don't think I'd guess right, and I just think that that's not a good recipe for storytelling. I try to write what I like, what I think my friends would like.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Writing #Thinking #People

If you feel that strongly about something, you have an obligation to try and change my mind.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Mind #Trying #Obligation

When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that's not going to be me.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Writing #Directors #Want

You're going to fall down, but the world doesn't care how many times you fall down, as long as it's one fewer than the numbers of times you get back up.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Graduation #Fall #Numbers

If I get an idea for a series that I really like, I'm sure I won't be able to resist coming back and doing it.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Ideas #Able #Coming Back

Stupid people surround themselves with smart people. Smart people surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Smart #Stupid #People

There are television critics, movie critics, and theater critics too who I like and who I follow and I get genuinely bummed when they don't like something that I've written because I usually agree with them.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Television #Theater #Critics

Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I'm going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Father #Awards #Pigs

A friend is somebody who says the same things to your face that they would say if you're not in the room.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Rooms #Faces #Your Face

We live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Wall #Gun #Men

Writers are opposite of athletes, they get better with age
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Athlete #Opposites #Get Better

Josh: So, Toby, it’s election night. What do you say about a country that goes out of its way to protect even those citizens that try to destroy it? Toby: God bless America.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Country #Night #America

Toby: All right. It couldn't have gone far, right? Sam: No. Toby: Somewhere in this building...is our talent.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Gone #Toby #Talent

President Bartlet: There's a delegation of cardiologists having their pictures taken in the Blue Room. You wouldn't think you could find a group of people more arrogant than the fifteen of us, but there they are, right upstairs in the Blue Room.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Taken #Thinking #Blue

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.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Two #People #Looks

Mrs. Landingham, does the President have free time this morning? The President has nothing but free time, Toby. Right now he's in the residence eating Cheerios and enjoying Regis and Kathie Lee. Should I get him for you? Sarcasm's a disturbing thing coming from a woman of your age, Mrs. Landingham. What age would that be, Toby? Late twenties? Atta boy.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Morning #Sarcasm #Boys

Never argue with a drunk or a fool.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Drunk #Fool #Arguing

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.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Fall #Years #People

I don't want to analyze myself or anything, but I think, in fact I know this to be true, that I enter the world through what I write. I grew up believing, and continue to believe, that I am a screw-up, that growing up with my family and friends, I had nothing to offer in any conversation. But when I started writing, suddenly there was something that I brought to the party that was at a high-enough level.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Growing Up #Party #Believe

Music is what mathematics does on a Saturday night.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Night #Doe #Mathematics

This is a time for serious people, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#People #Serious #Fifteen

It's a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Dumb #Combination #Unpredictable

Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. . . . Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense." --Sam Seaborne, West Wing
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Teacher #School #Wings

Government should be a place where people can come together, and no one gets left behind. No one…gets left behind. An instrument of good.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Government #People #Together

We lead the world in only 3 categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies. Now none of this is the fault of 20 year old college student, but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst period generation period ever period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world I don't know what the f^&k you're talking about.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Country #Real #Believe

I'm a registered Republican, I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Believe #Gay #Pressure

And a wheat thin the size of Lake Tahoe.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Lakes #Tahoe #Wheat

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.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Hate #Writing #White

Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep can play with the boys but there just aren't that many tour-de-force roles out there for women,
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Boys #Play #Roles

Rule of storytelling: When a character is shoved against a wall, shove them against a wall harder.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Wall #Character #Storytelling

It wouldn't kill you to watch a film or pick up a newspaper once in a while.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Watches #Film #Newspapers

It's nice that HBO is in business with the audience and not with the advertisers. There's a difference.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Nice #Hbo #Differences

Socializing on the internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Reality #Tvs #Internet

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

#Trying #Recipes #Want

Elite is not a bad word, it's an aspirational one
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Bad Word

Toby Zeigler: There's literally no one in the world I don't hate right now.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Hate #World #Toby

Make no mistake about it, you are dumb. You're a group of incredibly, well-educated dumb people. I was there. We all were there. You're barely functional. 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 the screw-ups, they're a-coming for ya. It's a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Graduation #Mistake #Memorable

A hero would die for his country, but he'd much rather live for it.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Country #Hero

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.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Responsibility #Organization #Different

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.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Nice #Hbo #People

It seems to me that more and more we've come to expect less and less from each other, and I think that should change.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Thinking #Should

You can only write, 'Somebody wants something, something else is in their way of getting it.'
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Writing #Want #Way

She's a person; the doctor pronounces her dead, not the news.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Doctors #News #Persons

Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Inspirational #Graduation #Hurt

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.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Writing #Eight #Scripts

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.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Believe #Black And White #Issues

I’m sick of girls who don’t know how to high-five,
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Girl #Sick

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.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Drama #Writing #Perfection

There's a great tradition in storytelling that's thousands of years old, telling stories about kings and their palaces, and that's really what I wanted to do.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Kings #Years #Stories

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.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Wings #Important #West

I'm not interested in the difference between good and bad, I'm interested in the differences between good and great.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Differences #Good And Bad #Not Interested

People who don't know anything tend to make up fake rules, the real rules being considerably more difficult to learn.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Real #People #Fake

Writing anything, it sorta starts the way you'd build a castle at the beach. You're just taking your hands and you're mounting up sand.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Beach #Writing #Hands

Film doesn't have to worry. Movies are awesome. There's no war going on, theaters aren't going to lose.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#War #Worry #Film

I don't believe there are two sides to every argument. I think the facts are the center. And watching the news abandon the facts in favor of 'fairness' is what's troubling to me.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Believe #Thinking #Two Sides

It's populated by people who, by and large, have terrific communication skills. Every day is an extraordinary day. For me, it was just a great area for storytelling.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Communication #Skills #People

Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Smart #Thinking #Rooms

Decisions are made by those who show up. Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Decision #Citizens #World