JOSH RADNOR

I distinguish sentiment from sentimentality. Sentimentality makes your skin crawl. It's like too much sugar. But, sentiment is a great feeling.

The reflexive allergy to L.A. that a lot of New Yorkers have, I feel like it's kind of nonsense.

I learned a lesson which I didn't heed: Don't put yourself in your movies. It's too much.

It really shocks me when I encounter people who think kindness doesn't matter. Because I think it's pretty much the only thing that matters.

It's not our job to play judge and jury, to determine who is worthy of our kindness and who is not. We just need to be kind, unconditionally and without ulterior motive, even - or rather, especially - when we'd prefer not to be.

I'm not a masochistic reader. If something is just too dense or not enjoyable, even though I'm told it should be good for me, I'll put it down. That said, most of what I read would be considered high-end or good for you, I suppose. But, I also think that reading should be enjoyable.

What I write is very personal, but not autobiographical. It's more 'thematically personal' - what's up in my life in terms of themes at the moment.

All of the things I used to obsess over, I'm no longer as obsessed with. I have new concerns but they're a little more existential or cosmic.

We're like a gardener with a hose and our attention is water - we can water flowers or we can water weeds.

I sometimes don't know what I'm writing when I start writing it, on some level.

No matter how dark things may get in a story, I feel it's the responsibility of the storyteller to leave the audience with at least a shred of hope.

I actually have a thing about proper nouns. They clang on my ear in a weird way when I hear them dropped into movies.

As a person, I'm anti-violence.

I find myself going out less and less. When you're 22 and see older people start to do that, it's depressing, but once you hit 30, you think, 'Wow, I've been working all week - it might be really nice to stay in!'

Well, I stopped drinking. That was actually a big deal. I didn't go through any harrowing rock-bottom experience. I just made a decision to stop drinking.

I tend to read things that are a little more on the nourishing side. But if I don't enjoy something, I'll put it down.

I haven't left the house without a packet of Kleenex in my back pocket for as long as I can remember. Whenever I start thinking I'm incredibly cool, the packet of Kleenex in my back pocket brings me right back down to earth.

I care about reading, a lot. It's a big part of my life.

My whole thing is that I want to explore why you read books, what's the purpose of reading, and maybe that it's not that cool to hate something just because it's popular.

I think that the mark of a great book is that it will meet you wherever you're at and you'll feel and experience something new and different each time you read it.

Everyone has expectations. You just don't want to have them dashed, so you're quiet about them.

A lot of times, we're just sold these movies that are really cynically conceived and marketed, and they just want you there opening weekend, before everybody finds out it's not so good.

It's strange to look back over a full season. Our characters have accrued all these memories, but so have we, the actors. And sometimes the character memories and the actor memories bleed into each other.

There's so much nonsense tossed around about L.A. and how horrible it is and 'don't go out there' and all that stuff. So I went out to L.A. and I was pleasantly surprised.

My trick is the trick that everyone knows: Work really hard and prepare.