Stephen J. Cannell

“I don’t struggle because I was always the stupidest kid in the class and the idea that I would ever be brilliant was knocked out of me in the third grade. So I’m not sitting around trying to be brilliant, or Shakespeare. I’m just trying to get the work I have in my head down on the page in the best way I possibly know how without putting that horrible pressure on myself of saying I’m going to write it today and in 200 years at Princeton they will be studying these words.” Yeah, I want my stuff to be as good as I can conceivably make it, but I am not going to put that on my head”

“I never waited for my Irish Cream coffee to be the right temperature, with a storm happening outside and my fireplace crackling ... I wrote every day, at home, in the office, whether I felt like it or not, I just did it.”

“If ya let hornets rest in yer outhouse, it's hard t'get pissed when they buzz down and sting yer ass.”

“A few minutes later, a very slim, very directed black-haired woman with olive skin and a classic profile swept into the room. Her hair was pulled back in a bun. She was the executive assistant version of the beautiful librarian cliché. Severe suit, abrupt manner, glasses perched on her nose and secured on a no-nonsense chain around her neck. But you knew when she took those specs off and let down her hair, the results would be dazzling.”