With all of my work, it always takes a while for people to get it.
— Ryan Murphy
People think I'm just sort of this P. T. Barnum, razzle-dazzle guy. They think I go out of my way to be outlandish and theatrical at the expense of having emotions. They don't get that there's another side to me, and I keep trying to show that other side.
It's interesting when women direct. The work is better. They ask more people to participate.
I started off in this business in 1998, and I didn't fit in. There was no place for me, and I always felt like an oddball. Nobody really understood my work or what I wanted to do in my references.
Just because you have a baby on your hip - or one on the way or two at home - doesn't mean you can't go after your dreams.
I had a very rocky, difficult, emotional childhood with my parents.
As a showrunner, you can never be a 'maybe.' When I do movies, there is a lot of, 'Maybe' and, 'Let's investigate that.' But for TV, it has to be yes or no.
I love crispy, cool sheets.
I had been accepted to film school, but my parents couldn't afford it, and yet they made too much money for me to get a scholarship.
When I was growing up my favorite show was 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', and I loved all the stuff that Norman Lear did.
I started off as a journalist when I was young and I did not get paid unless I wrote three stories a day.
You can't be the enfant terrible when you have the enfant at home.
Part of being an artist is being able to write about the world you live in and the times that you've been a part of.
I think when you take the big swings - and I've done plenty of big swings that I was told were never going to work - those are always the things that break through.
When I got my overall deal at Fox, I got amazing bosses in John Landgraf and Dana Walden and Peter Rice. For the first time ever, they said, 'Don't change who you are; be who you are. And write something you want to watch.' That thing was 'Glee,' and it took off from there.
I'd never had a mentor in Hollywood. Men have always been in control of the business, and they usually mentor people who are like them - but two inches shorter.
I've always been sort of, 'I love it,' or, 'I hate it,' and I think, as a result, I've always been a polarizing person. You either love me or you hate me. There's not a lot of 'Hmmm.'
I've gotten death threats, yes. I have. I think anytime you shine a spotlight on homosexuality or minorities and you try and say they are as normal or as worthy as acceptance as others, the people who are on the fringe don't like that and they will come after you. And they have come after me.
Originally, 'Popular' was going to be a movie.
Yeah, at home it's all moonbeams and puppy-dog tails, so I guess I do have a darker side - and I like writing about it.
Well, I'm from Indiana. So to me when I was a little kid growing up, Cincinnati was the glamorous New York of it all.
When I was starting out in Hollywood, everything was such a battle.
I'll ask the writers' room who they voted for Emmy awards, but I'll never ask who they voted for president.
I feel every day that everything I create - everything I do - I want it to be a risk.
I think everyone wants for their children a world that's better than the one they came up in.
I remember I always felt much more safe standing up on a chair and singing in front of my mother than I was in front of my father!
I'm very black and white about what I like or don't like, and I've always been that way.
You know, I'm very particular about my sheets. They have to be one hundred percent cotton, with a high thread count. Only cotton. No flannel.
Tone is everything in TV.
I think I have a pattern of nice and lovely and then dark and twisted.
Even though 'Glee' is sometimes a hard road, I am very excited about writing a multi-year arc.
