31 Quotes by Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Sorkin is a screenwriter, playwright, and director best known for his work on television shows like The West Wing and movies like The Social Network. Known for his rapid-fire dialogue and political leanings, Sorkin has won numerous awards for his work, including an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network. He is also known for his stage work, including the Tony-winning play A Few Good Men. (Bio)
Aaron Sorkin Quotes
As long as you keep one foot in the real world while the other foot's in a fairy tale, that fairy tale is going to seem kind of attainable. (Meaning)
Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day: civility, respect, kindness, character.
It's nice that HBO is in business with the audience and not with the advertisers. There's a difference.
You're going to fall down, but the world doesn't care how many times you fall down, as long as it's one fewer than the numbers of times you get back up.
Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.
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.
Rule of storytelling: When a character is shoved against a wall, shove them against a wall harder.
A friend is somebody who says the same things to your face that they would say if you're not in the room.
I love writing. I'm not particularly comfortable in the actual world - I'm much more comfortable on the page. So if I could have a life where I could just slip the pages under the door and somebody would slip me a meal back, then that would be perfect for me.
Socializing on the internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality.
Decisions are made by those who show up.
Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.
There are no Asian movie stars
Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks.
Humans know when it's not a good story. Unless you do this for a living, you may not know exactly why you don't like a story, but you can't fool an audience ever. They know when you have it and they know when you don't.
Music is what mathematics does on a Saturday night.
We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.
The real problem with all drugs is that they work. Fantastically. They're great, right up until the moment they kill you.
You can only write, 'Somebody wants something, something else is in their way of getting it.'
My resting pulse as a writer is writing idealistically and romantically; aspirationally. My taste lies in quixotic heroes.
When I feel that something I'm writing is going well, everything in my life is good and the things in my life that aren't good are completely manageable. If it's not going well, Miss America could be standing there in a swimsuit handing me a nobel price and I wouldn't be happy about it
I'm not interested in the difference between good and bad, I'm interested in the differences between good and great.
Toby Zeigler: There's literally no one in the world I don't hate right now.
Writers are opposite of athletes, they get better with age
Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I'm going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig.
Writing anything, it sorta starts the way you'd build a castle at the beach. You're just taking your hands and you're mounting up sand.
I'd been concerned all along that the character of the president in the West Wing pilot would throw the ensemble out of whack, that that character would simply take up all the oxygen in a room. I wanted to hold off bringing this character in until the last possible moment.
I've never met anyone who has said, "My goal is to make America mediocre." That's a kind of hard-right conservative fallacy.
Only criminals and adulterers should have to hide who they are.
Don't ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. (Meaning)
― Aaron Sorkin Quotes
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Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
