Mitchell Hurwitz Quotes

Every day, I learn something new. I think one of the most exciting things for a writer is to work on a TV show. It's like a novel. You have a really long time to develop and learn about the characters, and you can just really keep digging in deeper, every week.

It's really about, oh come on, this guy wouldn't say that or he wouldn't do that, you know, it's about the characters, about the story, about the situation.

If I write a cop show, it's not up to me to decide how different it is from 'Law & Order.' I had screenwriters go on and on and on about how their cop show isn't like any other cop show on TV. They made very good points, and it absolutely doesn't matter. It's entirely up to the audience to decide.

I want to do film and TV. I want to make good stories. I want to write; I want to be more involved.

As a storyteller, I think where working in television can almost be like lifting weights - you really have to know what your story is about.

I'm especially keen to work with good scriptwriters on stories we have developed.

I have always written - since I was a kid. I might say that I am essentially a writer who is bored to be alone in the room writing. I need to have more people around me. So, I 'write' with a film camera and have a party at the same time by having a bunch of people around.

In the past, I'd been sort of a fan of writing a coat hanger of a script, and something I could hang ideas off of.

If you have five weeks to write an episode of television or seven months to write a movie or several years to write a book, each of those things is going to be better than a live television show.

If I can be dead honest with you, when I first see the script for a new episode of 'Endeavour,' if anything jars, I say, 'What's this? Has it got a place in our story?' And if it hasn't, it has to go.

If a scene isn't well written they'll drop your neckline to fill the void.

When you start a script you aim to hit a note you know you want to end in general.

It's not about Hollywood, it's always about a good script for me.

The script - and a good one - tells you everything that you need to know.

I'm sure great scripts are hard to find, but I'm definitely open, and waiting to see what comes my way.

There are vast differences between scripts and stories, of course. Few fiction writers would want to give up the opportunity to explore how the minds of their characters work, or to set aside the opportunity to provide necessary background exposition in a succinct fashion.

Narrative and characters have always interested me. I never tried to alienate an audience. Of course, gradually, I wanted a bigger and bigger space to draw people in, so it's very organic [growth].

I'll tell you one thing, and this is banal to say because it just makes it sound like it's all planned, and nothing is planned at all. But one link is with The Deep End, and one link is that I'm making a film later on that revolves around the relationship between an innocent party and a dead body.

A lot of shows are more script-driven, like a prose script. As an actor, you never see a storyboard.

At the end of the day you do have to write a short novel beforehand, called a script, before you can make a movie.

Structure is, for me, the most fun challenge about writing novels.

What's your name?" Donald." Hi, Donald, missed you at the wienie roast.

In Hollywood, writers are considered only the first draft of human beings.

I felt like 'Life' was a great show. It was really well-written.

[Noah Hawley] just a fantastic writer. It's always about the script, it's always about the book; it always is. If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage. That's what attracted me to him first and foremost.