"I'm from California, but my father, who passed away when I was young, was from Newark. When I was kid, we would go back east and catch Yankees games. His side of the family are big Yankees fans. But, the real connection came in '97 when I moved to New York and became friends with the team."

"You know, I'm cursed with morals. I was raised a certain way. I wish I wasn't. I wish I was raised by wolves."

"When reality television really hit, I just had a backlash towards reality. It seemed like a cheap way to make a product. And then when music reality and 'Idol hit,' I just didn't watch it, it seemed novelty. And of course the story of 'Idol,' this is one of the greatest stories in television history."

"The plate tectonics of media have shifted where NBC had to become a new media company from an old media company."

"By the time I was 30, nobody would work with me. I was friendless, I was hopeless, I was suicidal, lost my family - I mean, it was bad. Bottomed out, didn't know what I was going to do. I actually thought I was going to be a chef - go to work in a kitchen someplace."

"Every act of his life is, in a very real sense, a religious act."

"I do genuinely believe that the political system is not linear. When it reaches a tipping point fashioned by a critical mass of opinion, the slow pace of change we're used to will no longer be the norm. I see a lot of signs every day that we're moving closer and closer to that tipping point."

"All I could do at school was paint and draw and that was the only time I ever passed any exam. It was the only thing I ever got right at school."