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 SorkinRead
I'll get cast occasionally as sort of the jerk version of myself, and I have fun doing that. But it's really better for everyone if I stay behind the camera.
Interpretation
Sorkin reflects on his preference to create behind the camera rather than being in front of it as a performer.
Aaron Sorkin expresses a self-awareness about his persona, suggesting that while he enjoys playing a certain type of character, he believes that his true contribution lies in his writing and directing. This highlights the importance of knowing one's strengths and choosing the role that best contributes to the collective artistic vision.
In practice
In a filmmakers' panel discussing the best roles for writers.
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.
The upside of web-based journalism is that everybody gets a chance. The downside is that everybody gets a chance.
Decisions are made by those who show up. Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world.
Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.
With 'The Social Network,' I got into it at first because frankly I thought there was a cool courtroom drama to be had with the intellectual properties. And then what further drew me in was that the most extraordinary social networking device ever created was created by the world's most antisocial person. I liked that story.
Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks.
Photography is an art of observation - it's about creating something extraordinary out of the ordinary. You choose a frame and then wait until the right time for something magical to come along and fill it.
Writing is very improvisational. It's like trying to fix a broken sewing machine with safety pins and rubber bands. A lot of tinkering.
It's ironic that while I was a worker in Detroit, which I left when I was twenty six, my sense was that the thing that's going to stop me from being a poet is the fact that I'm doing this crummy work.
The word war itself has a kind of glazing abstraction to it that conjures up bombs and bullets and so on, whereas my goal is to try to, so much as I can, capture the heart and the stomach and the back of the throat of readers who can lie in bed at night and participate in a story.
Colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas.
What is it that an artist does when he is left alone in his studio? My conclusion was that if I was an artist and I was in the studio, then everything I was doing in the studio should be art . . . . From that point on, art became more of an activity and less of a product.
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