It takes a lot of people to make a winning team. Everybody's contribution is important.
I like to write scenes in the middle of the night. We could change every word of 'Family Ties' between Monday and Friday.
At the end of the seven years, 'Family Ties' voluntarily went off the air. And, we went off as the #1 show on TV that week. We cut down the nets on stage 24 and moved on with the rest of our lives. Always to carry with us the blessing of what we had gone through together.
In 1998, I received treatment for my knee by an Israeli therapist. We spoke about Israel and I mentioned 'Scooterman' and he just froze. It was like he had met Elvis. I thought he was kidding me and then he called his brother, they yelled to each other over the phone, and then I believed him.
It was Nate Monaster who encouraged me to be a writer.
I was a guy who showed up for work and took the chance for finding out whether I could do it or not... I'd like to think I made my success not at the expense of anyone. Success was accidental.
Television is what it's always been. The best of times and the worst of times at the same time.
I think to the extent you die with money in the bank, you've miscalculated.
A lot of money eliminates a category of worry. If your car breaks down, you're still going to get through the day. But it doesn't make you a happy person if you weren't a happy person before.
I don't sleep at night at all. Making movies is a marathon. I'm a good 100-yard-dash guy.
A good team, like a good show, comes into being when the separate individuals working together create, in essence, another separate higher entity - the team - the show - which is better than any of those individuals can ever be on their own.
You could put all of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's angry sermons on to one loop. You could put that loop up on the big screen at Radio City Music Hall and let it play there 24 hours a day, seven days a week and Barack Obama will still emerge as the next president of the United States.
My father worked in the Post Office. A lot of double shifts. All his friends were in the same situation - truck drivers, taxi cab drivers, grocery clerks. Blue collar guys punching the clock and working long, hard hours. The thought that sustained them was the one at the center of the American dream.
'Family Ties' was a very successful situation comedy. And, in almost every respect, it functioned on a day to day basis like a well-run, well conditioned basketball team. The show was performed live each week in front of a studio audience on Friday night.
