I care about actors, and I understand them in a very personal way. I'm not saying every writer has to do that, but in my case, it's been helpful. I can put myself into the scene and think, 'What would it be like to act this?' Any writer who's really good probably does that to some extent.

Winnie Holzman

Sometimes it seems like we're all living in some kind of prison, and the crime is how much we all hate ourselves. It's good to get really dressed up once in a while and admit the truth - that when you really look closely, people are so strange and so complicated that they're actually beautiful. Possibly even me.

Winnie Holzman

hate truth beautiful

This life has been a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received actual instructions on where to go and what to do.

Winnie Holzman

this-life tests instruction

I'm a little Jewish girl from Long Island, but when I listened to Tina Turner, I pictured myself in a mini-dress, dancing like Tina Turner. It's inevitable.

Winnie Holzman

girl islands long

I want to be a person that isn't surrounded by their mail and their cat.

Winnie Holzman

cat mail want

Series television is kind of intensive in terms of time. You fall hard for TV writing, but it's almost love-hate. You're under pressure all the time, but that pressure gets interesting things out of you that are, you know, mysterious.

Winnie Holzman

you pressure time fall

When you're doing a series, you're really in a zone. You're thinking about those characters and their situations in a free-floating way all the time. They live with you all the time. So it's just as natural as breathing to be having ideas and thinking about what they're thinking about.

Winnie Holzman

you time ideas thinking

The whole idea of a dream, to me, is a mystery plane. Things are operating there that tell us the real truth. The stuff going on inside us that we don't express or even know about pours out in our dreams.

Winnie Holzman

dreams me truth dream

I loved the whole idea, first of all, of what friendship is. Very often, there are people that somehow you don't know how to declare that you are their friend, but you are their friend. That happens in a lot in high school. And outside of high school.

Winnie Holzman

you friendship people school

I consider myself a writer. I always wanted to act, and as a teen, I studied acting devotedly. Eventually, I got writing work, but very little acting work.

Winnie Holzman

teen myself work writing

I realized later how much my acting experience influenced my writing and how it helped me to write for other actors.

Winnie Holzman

me experience acting writing

I don't think of myself as a producer. In television, it's part of the business - if you progress and become successful as a writer, you're called a writer-producer. What that means is that you have a lot of say in casting and behind-the-scenes stuff. But I'm just a writer.

Winnie Holzman

myself you progress business

The discovery I made was that, really, in America, if you went to high school in our country, it doesn't really matter where you went to high school. In a funny way, all high schools are the same.

Winnie Holzman

you funny way school

In my life, it's always been about who I'm going to collaborate with. Less important to me is what the subject is.

Winnie Holzman

my-life me important life

As a writer who has collaborated on projects, you give your life over to that project.

Winnie Holzman

project your you life

This is embarrassing to admit, but I didn't really know anything about Pearl Jam. Of course, I knew who they were, but I had never really sampled them.

Winnie Holzman

anything never admit know

I'm certainly a real homebody. But the truth is that I understand that desire to, in a way, go join the circus. That's what got me out of Long Island and into show business. I was like, 'I'm just going to have an adventure. I want to be a person that isn't surrounded by their mail and their cat.'

Winnie Holzman

me business truth long

I really learned that, when I got into television, I really learned the power, how deeply it affects people to see themselves on television, to see something that they can relate to, that they feel is like them in some way; people feel validated. Its not a little thing. It really means a lot to people. It actually can change people.

Winnie Holzman

feel change power people

Camp is like this set-apart world where people go to try to change who they are, and yet change is really scary.

Winnie Holzman

go change people world

I do love the idea of people at a certain time in their lives when they're questioning, figuring out who to be. I find that interesting, but honestly, I think it's like that at every time in your life.

Winnie Holzman

time love life people

For me, being a writer, you want to communicate with people, but if your goal is that every person is going to love what you do, then you're always going to be disappointed.

Winnie Holzman

me you love people