110+ Aaron Sorkin Quotes On Writing, Sharp And Witty

Aaron Sorkin is an American screenwriter, director, and producer. He is best known for his work on the television series The West Wing, Sports Night, and The Newsroom. He has also written several feature films, including A Few Good Men, The Social Network, and Moneyball. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Aaron Sorkin on writing, sharp, witty.

Top 10 Aaron Sorkin Quotes

1. It's nice that HBO is in business with the audience and not with the advertisers. There's a difference.
2. Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.
3. 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.
4. Stupid people surround themselves with smart people. Smart people surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them.
5. Don't ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world, it's the only thing that ever has.
6. Socializing on the internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality.
7. There are no Asian movie stars
8. There's a great tradition in storytelling that's thousands of years old, telling stories about kings and their palaces, and that's really what I wanted to do.
9. Decisions are made by those who show up.
10. Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.

Aaron Sorkin Short Quotes

• Music is what mathematics does on a Saturday night.
• And my friends, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
• Conflict, when used as a device, makes for good television and bad journalism.
• When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that's not going to be me.
• Rule of storytelling: When a character is shoved against a wall, shove them against a wall harder.
• I'm sick of girls who don't know how to high-five.
• Writers are opposite of athletes, they get better with age
• It wouldn't kill you to watch a film or pick up a newspaper once in a while.
• A hero would die for his country, but he'd much rather live for it.
• Never argue with a drunk or a fool.

Aaron Sorkin Quotes About Writing

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. — Aaron Sorkin

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 — Aaron Sorkin

You can only write, 'Somebody wants something, something else is in their way of getting it.' — Aaron Sorkin

My resting pulse as a writer is writing idealistically and romantically; aspirationally. My taste lies in quixotic heroes. — Aaron Sorkin

I grew up in the theatre. It's where I got my start. Writing a television drama with theatrical dialogue about the theatre is beyond perfection. — Aaron Sorkin

I consider plot a necessary intrusion on what I really want to do, which is write snappy dialogue. But when I'm writing, the way the words sound is as important to me as what they mean. — Aaron Sorkin

Just to clarify the division of labor on the show, I write the show and Alan [Poul] does everything else. — Aaron Sorkin

I don't think I write differently when I'm writing a screenplay, as opposed to a stage play or a teleplay. Maybe if I were in a film class and there was time to think about it, we could point out differences. — Aaron Sorkin

I think it's up to writers to write stuff that is compelling enough that people want to watch. — Aaron Sorkin

The thing I know how to do most is write a play. I came up loving plays and learning about plays and writing plays. I actually feel like an outsider when I'm writing movies and television. — Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin Quotes About People

But HBO is less interested in how many people are watching than in how much the people who are watching are liking the show. They didn't set up their business model to make writers happy. It's just a nice unintended consequence. — Aaron Sorkin

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. — Aaron Sorkin

Any time you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written. That's what I look for. — Aaron Sorkin

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. — Aaron Sorkin

This is a time for serious people, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up. — Aaron Sorkin

I would love for people to think that I am as quick, clever, smart and heroic as the characters that I write, but those characters are characters. — Aaron Sorkin

Honestly, I don't try to guess at what most people want. I don't think I'd guess right, and I just think that that's not a good recipe for storytelling. I try to write what I like, what I think my friends would like. — Aaron Sorkin

I have a lot of respect for people who are great at ad-libbing, and for writers and directors who are able to create a scene in which that works. — Aaron Sorkin

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. — Aaron Sorkin

Certainly, last year we did an episode about the census and sampling versus a direct statistic. You just said the word "census," and people fall asleep. — Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin Quotes About World

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. — Aaron Sorkin

We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. — Aaron Sorkin

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

The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one - America is not the greatest country in the world anymore. — Aaron Sorkin

Decisions are made by those who show up. Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world. — Aaron Sorkin

You know, one of the things I like about this world, or at least I like about the way we're presenting this world, is these issues are terribly complicated - not nearly as black and white as we're led to believe. — Aaron Sorkin

There really isn't a story that you can't tell inside of it. It's very much a clearinghouse for anything that goes on in the world. So you're not at all limited. — Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin Quotes About Life

It's a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb. — Aaron Sorkin

If you can socialize from the privacy of your desk at night in a dark room, you can be a smoother, cooler, funnier, sexy, more everything person than you actually are in real life. — Aaron Sorkin

There are some screw-ups headed your way. I wish I could tell you that there was a trick to avoiding the screw-ups... but they're coming for ya. It's a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb. — Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin Famous Quotes And Sayings

If you close your eyes you can imagine the hackers sitting in a room, combing through the documents to find the ones that will draw the most blood. And in a room next door are American journalists doing the same thing. As demented and criminal as it is, at least the hackers are doing it for a cause. The press is doing it for a nickel. — Aaron Sorkin

Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks. — Aaron Sorkin

It seems to me that more and more we've come to expect less and less from each other, and I think that should change. — Aaron Sorkin

Perhaps something like Facebook couldn't have been invented by somebody who goes out five nights a week and has a ton of friends and makes friends really easily. — Aaron Sorkin

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

Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I'm going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig. — Aaron Sorkin

There are television critics, movie critics, and theater critics too who I like and who I follow and I get genuinely bummed when they don't like something that I've written because I usually agree with them. — Aaron Sorkin

When you're writing a movie or a play and writing isn't going well, which is for me the normal condition - it's an exceptional day when suddenly I've got something and it's going well - you can call the studio or the producer or whoever is waiting for it and say, "I know I said I was going to have it in by the end of the summer. — Aaron Sorkin

Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good. — Aaron Sorkin

It's certainly easy for me to make a fictional character mad about something. I can get them angry about something that I'm relatively indifferent about, just because I'm not educated on it, if I go to someone who is educated about it and is passionate about it. I find a point of fiction and then give it to them. — Aaron Sorkin

Josh: So, Toby, it’s election night. What do you say about a country that goes out of its way to protect even those citizens that try to destroy it? Toby: God bless America. — Aaron Sorkin

It's important to remember that, first and foremost, if not only, this is entertainment. "The West Wing" isn't meant to be good for you. — Aaron Sorkin

I wrote the show West Wing for the two years before and the two years after 9/11. Suddenly everyone in the world had been through something that our characters had not been through; the whole trajectory of the world had changed. Yet our show took place in a parallel universe. I wasn't really sure what to do about this. In no one's wildest dreams did it occur that an event like this could possibly happen. — Aaron Sorkin

The stuff that I write doesn't work very well as background music. You have to watch it from beginning to end and pay attention as if you were watching a play. — Aaron Sorkin

We're about to shoot an episode on Air Force One, for instance, and we're going to take liberties, small liberties, with Air Force One, as we take small liberties with our White House set. — Aaron Sorkin

People don't live their lives in a series of scenes that form a dramatic narrative, they don't speak in dialogue, they're not lit by a cinematographer or scored by a composer. The properties of real life and the properties of drama have almost nothing to do with each other. The difference between writing about reporters and being a reporter is the same as the difference between drawing a building and building a building. — Aaron Sorkin

Make no mistake about it, you are dumb. You’re a group of incredibly well-educated dumb people. I was there. We all were there. You’re barely functional. There are some screw-ups headed your way. I wish I could tell you that there was a trick to avoiding the screw-ups, but the screw-ups, they’re a-coming for ya. It’s a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb. — Aaron Sorkin

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

The downside to series television is that the schedule is ferocious. It constantly feels like you have a midterm due that you haven't started yet. — Aaron Sorkin

My preference would have been to not go back on the air after 9\11, at all until the time felt right but that wasn't an option. — Aaron Sorkin

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. — Aaron Sorkin

More than any time in recent history, America's destiny is not of our own choosing. We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people's strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arive...The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars... — Aaron Sorkin

I'm not interested in the difference between good and bad, I'm interested in the differences between good and great. — Aaron Sorkin

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

I'm terribly afraid of failure. When your identity is wrapped up in writing and you've written something that doesn't work, it's a tough pill to swallow. — Aaron Sorkin

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

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. — Aaron Sorkin

I've never met anyone who has said, "My goal is to make America mediocre." That's a kind of hard-right conservative fallacy. — Aaron Sorkin

I don’t believe there are two sides to every argument. I think the facts are the center. And watching the news abandon the facts in favor of “fairness” is what’s troubling to me. — Aaron Sorkin

And a wheat thin the size of Lake Tahoe. — Aaron Sorkin

To use a basketball metaphor, West Wing cast was a group that liked to pass as much as they liked to shoot. — Aaron Sorkin

Elite is not a bad word, it's an aspirational one. — Aaron Sorkin

Film doesn't have to worry. Movies are awesome. There's no war going on, theaters aren't going to lose. — Aaron Sorkin

One of the biggest challenges in the past for me in working on the networks was that audiences have grown accustomed to television being something that keeps you company-background music, something that you have on while you're flipping through a magazine, cooking dinner, talking on the phone, putting the kids to bed. — Aaron Sorkin

A news organization has a much different responsibility. I might not be telling you the whole story. I might not be telling you a story in a manner that is properly sophisticated. — Aaron Sorkin

The hardest thing for me is getting started. If I'm writing a script, really 90 per cent of it would be just walking around, climbing the walls, just trying to put the idea together. Then the final 10 per cent would be writing it. — Aaron Sorkin

There's that process of writing it - then you come out of your room into the sunlight, and you now have to complete the circuit and make the connection finally with the audience. — Aaron Sorkin

Well, I must tell you I write the scripts very close to the bone. So I'm writing episode seven now and couldn't tell you what happens in episode eight. — Aaron Sorkin

People who don't know anything tend to make up fake rules, the real rules being considerably more difficult to learn. — Aaron Sorkin

As an audience member, I like the sound of something that's been written - I like it to sound written. And then, of course, you can't do it without the musicians who can play it. — Aaron Sorkin

I think that if I couldn't write, I would be unemployable. — Aaron Sorkin

Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That's my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet. — Aaron Sorkin

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor. I was acting in all the school plays. I went to school for acting. I was really sure that that's what I wanted to do. — Aaron Sorkin

The Monica Lewinsky scandal was happening at the very time I was writing the West Wing pilot and it was hard, at least for Americans, to look at the White House and think of anything but a punch line. Plus a show about politics, a show that took place in Washington, had just never worked before in American television. So the show was delayed for a year. — Aaron Sorkin

Margaret: Can I - can I just say something for the future? Leo: Yeah. Margaret: I can sign the President's name. I have his signature down pretty good. Leo: You can sign the President's name? Margaret: Yeah. Leo: On a document removing him from power and handing it to someone else? Margaret: Yeah! Or... do you think the White House Counsel would say that was a bad idea? Leo: I think the White House Counsel would say it was a coup d'etat! Margaret: Well. I'd probably end up doing some time for that. Leo: I would think. And what the hell were you doing practicing the President's signature? Margaret: It was just for fun. — Aaron Sorkin

If I get an idea for a series that I really like, I'm sure I won't be able to resist coming back and doing it. — Aaron Sorkin

I want to convey that I'm crazy about the Kardashians - but I'm not sure which is which. — Aaron Sorkin

Our responsibility is to captivate you for however long we've asked for your attention. That said, there is tremendous drama to be gotten from the great, what you would say, heavy issues. — Aaron Sorkin

Only criminals and adulterers should have to hide who they are. — Aaron Sorkin

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. — Aaron Sorkin

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. — Aaron Sorkin

With a television series, there's a hard deadline, and so you have to write even when you're not writing well. — Aaron Sorkin

I got into dialogue because my parents began taking me to see plays from when I was very young. Too young, often, to understand the play I was watching: Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf when I was nine years old; That Championship Season when I was ten years old. But I loved the sound of dialogue; it sounded like music to me and I wanted to imitate that sound. — Aaron Sorkin

The guy who wins the Oscar for Best Actor has a much higher bar to clear than the woman who wins best actress. — Aaron Sorkin

I don't have personal experience and knowledge about anything but theater. I've been tutored very well on the subject, but ultimately I'm going back to the rules of drama. There are genres that I like as an audience member that I can't write as a writer. I can't write crime, and I like a good thriller as much as anybody. — Aaron Sorkin

That's a very real feeling - that I don't have a story to tell. I'm not a pure storyteller. I have a tough time with story. — Aaron Sorkin

Television from its inception had the number one goal to alienate as few people as possible. That's why if you look at 1950s, 1960s American sitcoms, the characters don't live any place in particular, religion is never discussed, politics is never discussed, you never really know what anyone's job is; nothing that could make these people seem different from you is ever discussed. — Aaron Sorkin

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. — Aaron Sorkin

I do enjoy the fact that we don't have a king or queen; we have a person with a very unusual temp job for a few years. My favorite moments on the show were always showing the intersection of the person and the job. Any time Bartlet from the West Wing could be something other than the president - a father, or a husband, or a son, or a friend. — Aaron Sorkin

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. — Aaron Sorkin

An artist’s job is to captivate… if we stumble into truth, we got lucky. — Aaron Sorkin

Life Lessons by Aaron Sorkin

1. Aaron Sorkin teaches that hard work and dedication are essential for success, as he worked tirelessly to become one of the most successful producers in Hollywood.
2. He also emphasizes the importance of perseverance, as he faced numerous rejections and failures before eventually achieving success.
3. Finally, Sorkin's life story serves as an example of the power of storytelling, as he has used his own experiences to create compelling and memorable stories.