Aaron Sorkin Quotes, Thoughts and images

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

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

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

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

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

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

Socializing on the internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality.

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

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

Music is what mathematics does on a Saturday night.

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

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

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

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

Writers are opposite of athletes, they get better with age

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

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

We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.

There are no Asian movie stars

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.

The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one - America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.

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.

To use a basketball metaphor, West Wing cast was a group that liked to pass as much as they liked to shoot.

I'm terribly afraid of failure. When your identity is wrapped up in writing and you've written something that doesn't work, it's a tough pill to swallow.

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

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

Only criminals and adulterers should have to hide who they are.