I talk all the time about how much I read growing up and how much I love Stephen King and how he impacted my work from a genre perspective, but Pat Conroy wrote some of the most magnificent stories about characters who had to deal with dysfunctional families and try to find a place of honor in their own world and the pain of loss.

I love real women that don't have to be saints, who can be selfish and act out against their parents or like the wrong guy, because that's life. That's my life, at least.

When you're telling taut, tight storytelling that has any kind of built-in plot twist elements, you tend to want to stack everything up on top of itself as opposed to letting things breathe and be languid in terms of the passage of time.

I remember, my freshman year of college, sitting in my TV room at the end of my dorm hallway with one other girl watching the premiere of 'Beverly Hills, 90210.' And then, a year later, walking into a room packed with college students watching '90210,' and I thought, 'I wonder what it must be like to be part of a phenomenon like that.'

I used to sneak 'General Hospital' when I was a kid. My cousin was my babysitter, and she watched it, so I got hooked on it. I wasn't supposed to be watching it, but I was so obsessed with it that I'd find ways, even as an 8-year-old, to get into that.

There are a lot of things you do in a supernatural universe that can toe the line and cross the line.

You can love and hate your family with equal measure, but the power of the bond you have to have with them, you can't really ever walk away.

When you're dealing with long-distance relationships, it's a relationship played out over technology. When you're in high school, it's because you're not supposed to act on those impulses yet. So some of my favorite relationships in drama are based in people that can't really be together.

I always talk about Meredith and Derrick from 'Grey's Anatomy,' and I loved them the most when they sort of opened and closed each episode with them in bed, happy with each other, and you didn't need to insert extra conflict into them, because there was plenty of conflict in the show. So they were this port in the storm of conflict.

I call it 'The Breakfast Club' philosophy. There's something about being trapped in a dire situation with a group of people that you would never normally be trapped with.

I realized that I get pleasure when I'm told, 'Don't listen to the haters; they're losers in their moms' basements.' I imagine these 'losers' and feel better about myself. Their insults hurt less if I label them 'pathetic.' I diminish their value in order to protect mine. I noticed that I'm quick to make a joke at someone else's expense.

I am a great believer in found families and I'm not a great believer in blood.

Kristen Stewart is kind of captivating; she can just stare at stuff and it works because I still want to watch it.

The misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it.

Horror movies don't exist unless you go and see them, and people always will.

The way a musical can make us feel is unlike anything else, in song and particularly in dance. I think people fly through plate-glass windows when they get shot because movies don't have dance scenes any more. This is what we do instead.

I love TV in a way that I don't love any other medium.

When you're making a film, you have an obligation to fill the frame with life.

You know, the thing that I do to waste time is think of things I want to make. That's how my mind is employed.

That title, is one of the things I fought for. A lot of people said 'But it's stupid, and it's the title of a comedy movie, and people won't take it seriously,' and I'm sure there are some people who still don't. But for the most part, people do see that we really have a quality show.

Oddly enough, I never studied writing. I studied almost everything except writing.

If somebody comes up to me, it's because they're moved by something I'm moved by. I've never taken a job I didn't love... So when somebody's coming up to me, or they're writing, they're in the same space I am in.

When people say to me, 'Why are you so good at writing at women?' I say, 'Why isn't everybody?'

I don't have a particular ambition in any medium. I just want to keep telling stories. If somebody pays me, also good.