Aaron Sorkin 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.

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.

Decisions are made by those who show up.

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

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

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

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

Stupid people surround themselves with smart people. Smart people surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them.

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

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.

I love writing. I'm not particularly comfortable in the actual world - I'm much more comfortable on the page. So if I could have a life where I could just slip the pages under the door and somebody would slip me a meal back, then that would be perfect for me.

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

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.'

Humans know when it's not a good story. Unless you do this for a living, you may not know exactly why you don't like a story, but you can't fool an audience ever. They know when you have it and they know when you don't.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

People don't live their lives in a series of scenes that form a dramatic narrative, they don't speak in dialogue, they're not lit by a cinematographer or scored by a composer. The properties of real life and the properties of drama have almost nothing to do with each other. The difference between writing about reporters and being a reporter is the same as the difference between drawing a building and building a building.

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.

Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That's my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.