50 Quotes by Shawn Ryan

I was never that kid who grew up in New York and was always at the arthouse watching important films. I was the kid who grew up in the Midwest where there weren't any art films, and I watched TV. And that was really the medium that affected me and that I fell in love with.

You can make a good show, but you still need some magical alchemy to get people to watch.

Cheers was one of the first shows where I paid attention to the writers because their [work] was better than everything else I was watching. The writers weren't afraid to let a joke fall slightly flat if it advanced the characters.

The payment for sins can be delayed. But they cant be avoided.

There will always be economic pressure to make hits, identify hits, and then exploit hits. And you're going to exploit them with as many episodes as you probably can.

Everyone in Hollywood who is successful becomes less successful at some point. I'm just trying to delay that fall for as long as I can.

I've always read a lot of historical books and I'm a big fan of documentaries, and I've always thought of ways to do it.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about what the audience would want. That's my job, is to anticipate ahead of the audience.

TV is just such a fast-moving medium that you do what you can do, and what you can't do, you don't worry about too much.