“In the area we're discussing, leadership begins on Madison Avenue, on the desks …” — Norman Lear

I guess because the shows were activist in their own way - the marriage of my public activism and my career activism, you know - people understand me very well. They also understand there's a very strong bipartisan part in all of this.

In this nation, leadership is dollars.

I think the greater responsibility, in terms of morality, is where leadership begins.

But it also became the experience, or was the experience, of the writers who were attracted to this kind of humor. They're all men or women who come from the same kind of experience in their own lives.