Quotes from Aaron Sorkin

Television is a visual medium. You have to create some kind of visual interest. And it's entertainment for your eyes.

I am all for everyone having a voice; I just don't think everyone has earned the microphone. And that's what the Internet has done.

It's populated by people who, by and large, have terrific communication skills. Every day is an extraordinary day. For me, it was just a great area for storytelling.

Lieutenant Commander Galloway [behind a chain link fence at a ball field]: Do you know what a code red is? Lieutenant Kaffee, standing on the ball field, looks at her in silence with a blank expression on his face. Galloway: What a pity.

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.

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

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

Mrs. Landingham, does the President have free time this morning?" "The President has nothing but free time, Toby. Right now he's in the residence eating Cheerios and enjoying Regis and Kathie Lee. Should I get him for you?" "Sarcasm's a disturbing thing coming from a woman of your age, Mrs. Landingham." "What age would that be, Toby?" "Late twenties?" "Atta boy.

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

The greater fool is actually an economic term. It's a patsy. For the rest of us to profit, we need a greater fool— someone who will buy long and sell short. Most people spend their life trying not to be the greater fool; we toss him the hot potato, we dive for his seat when the music stops. The greater fool is someone with the perfect blend of self-delusion and ego to think that he can succeed where others have failed. This whole country was made by greater fools.

Toby: All right. It couldn't have gone far, right? Sam: No. Toby: Somewhere in this building...is our talent.

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

Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. . . . Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense." --Sam Seaborne, West Wing

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

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

I don't want to analyze myself or anything, but I think, in fact I know this to be true, that I enter the world through what I write. I grew up believing, and continue to believe, that I am a screw-up, that growing up with my family and friends, I had nothing to offer in any conversation. But when I started writing, suddenly there was something that I brought to the party that was at a high-enough level.

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

If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you. (Isaac Jaffe, Sports Night)

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

President Bartlet: There's a delegation of cardiologists having their pictures taken in the Blue Room. You wouldn't think you could find a group of people more arrogant than the fifteen of us, but there they are, right upstairs in the Blue Room.

Music is what mathematics does on a Saturday night.

She's a person; the doctor pronounces her dead, not the news.

Don't tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing.

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.