Being a good television screenwriter requires an understanding of the way film accelerates the communication of words.

Hill Street Blues might have been the first television show that had a memory. One episode after another was part of a cumulative experience shared by the audience.

Casting is sort of like looking at paintings. You don’t know what you’ll like, but you recognize it when you see it.

One of the problems of writing is that anyone who commits themselves to that process has to believe that they’re good.

I think the best work flows out of a collaborative environment.

Imagery is like music.

Vivid images are like a beautiful melody that speaks to you on an emotional level. It bypasses your logic centers and even your intellect and goes to a different part of the brain.

Hill Street Blues gave me an opportunity to work with an ensemble cast of people whose work I admired.

Being a good television screenwriter requires an understanding of the way film accelerates the communication of words.

You have to give directors and cinematographers a word blueprint for visuals, but I had to learn that from experience.

Film provides an opportunity to marry the power of ideas with the power of images.