After 'Nikki' and 'Steve Harvey,' I had written on a show called 'The Oblongs,' which was pretty well respected and had a lot of 'Simpsons' writers on it. So I was a TV writer with an interesting voice at that moment.

I've always been really interested in how people's identities are shaped by where they come from and how they want to get away from where they come from.

My purpose as an artist is to heal the divided feminine in our culture. Well, okay wait, that sounds incredibly cheesy and like something a massage therapist might do at Esalen.

I love a kind of shambling outsider protagonist who always feels like they're 'other.'

Some of you guys are going to boo, but I'm going to say it anyway. I don't like dogs.

For me to be able to punch above my weight creatively, to actually take a stand for what I was doing, I had to take on everything. I had to be the person who says, 'I wrote it. I directed it.'

The network shows have this very commercial voice that you have to adhere to, and the cable shows, it's kind of like winning the lottery. The independent film world is a world you can actually get to. You can get the under-a-million-dollar film by finding a good cast and financing.

Every project is a race between your enthusiasm and your ability to get it done. Go fast. Don't slow down. A year from now, new things will interest you.

We grew up watching Woody Allen and Albert Brooks movies, and we see this neurotic, annoying, unlikeable male at the center of a story, and people root for him anyway. I think that's really what we have been craving as women is the hero who doesn't look perfect and doesn't act perfectly.

I love TV, I love writing, but I love movements more.

I guess a show like 'Entourage' would be wish fulfillment, right? But 'Entourage' is wish fulfillment for men. It's that you can be kind of schlumpy-looking and have access to someone famous and find yourself at a pool party surrounded by girls in bikinis.

I'm very aware that just driving blindly towards money won't get me anything. I drive blindly towards making the world a better place.

In most shows, there's usually a hero or a protagonist, and even if there are multiple heroes or protagonists, most shows try and make it so you really always know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy.

I used to think that, when I was a director, I would have a very specific vision of what everything would look like, but now I am more of a camp counselor.

Your first job, I tell people I mentor, is managing your affect. Be nice and say nice things. Make it so that the people walk away from interacting with you and say, 'That was fun.' That will make them want to come back and do it again.

All writing is propaganda for the self.

On Sunday morning, it's Brooklyn Bagels on Beverly Boulevard. We get them hot. Then we walk some of the famous Silver Lake steps or hike in the hills to the highest vantage point to see the reservoir.

My interest in community is what fuels my work as a writer, more than just wanting to write or just wanting to have a TV show.

I think I've always had that struggle my whole life, of feeling a little bit more gender-neutral, feeling more comfortable as a creative person when I'm dressed like a boy, when I'm dressed more masculine.

It's really easy to be funny. You get a lot of funny people in a room, the show is funny.

It's really easy to do sad; you just put on some sad music and write dramatically - everybody can do that.

I'm constantly confused about how to dress.

Being pretty... I'm just confused about it. I mean, I love getting my nails done, but I also like dressing like a boy. I think I feel most myself when I'm mixing femininity and masculinity. Like, fifty-fifty.

Independent filmmakers already have their heads around people on their couches watching their movies.

We're a whole culture of people who have a really hard time seeing beyond themselves.

There's always been something about Jeffrey Tambor, not only as an actor but as a person, where his ability to embody a sort of very dignified feminine way of being just - this was just very clear to me.

I always wanted to do a family show.

'Six Feet Under,' for me, was college. Alan Ball and Alan Poul ran that show and really taught me what it meant to really run a show in a classic way.

Something I've really been wanting to do, ever since 'Six Feet Under' ended, was create my own version of this idealized writer's room as well as the ideal family.

I took all my TV experience and what I learned about - by writing and directing and bringing a movie to Sundance - about the realities of the independent film market: 'Transparent' is the marriage of those two situations.

I always love the soapy conflicts between somebody's family of origin and their new family - 'Do I have Thanksgiving at my husband's parents' house, or at my parents' house?'

Normally, you cast a pilot, and you have to make compromises about being political about who you cast.

I wouldn't necessarily say that 'Alpha House' or 'Betas' embodied a particular vision of Amazon of the kind of brand or programming they were gonna do. I think those were the first lucky creators who hit it right for them.

I've been writing about misogyny for 20 years and trying to understand what femininity means for my entire career.

If you're female, and you want to express your femininity, you're actually demonized in the 'Free To Be... You And Me' generation.

I really relate to the feeling of falling in love 10 times a day and wishing I could never stop falling in love.

I'm a fan of Louis C.K., I'm a fan of Lena Dunham. I love shows about people that other people would consider unlikable, or, like, the work of Woody Allen and Albert Brooks.

When I went to Sundance for 'Afternoon Delight,' I came back feeling like I wanted to take my experience that I learned from directing and bring that into a series.

I've noticed that women are always punished for their sexuality in popular culture.

When you're making an independent film, it's like this actor plus this actor equals this funding, this financing. Pull this actor out, this actor is still here but this money's gone. It's this frightening puzzle mosaic that is the world of independent film.

Femininity in and of itself - and the feminine - can be not only privileged, but honored or worshipped.

I really feel like becoming a director came from other women saying, 'Yeah, you can do this.' I wanted to direct 'Six Feet Under,' and no, they didn't let me.

I think, because of the Internet, we're not looking at the very, very narrow channels for distribution that there used to be.

Whether you're writing television or movies, at some point you're going to encounter a male executive or investor who's going to say, 'I don't like that woman. She's unlikable.' And often, it's literally for being a regular human woman as opposed to an attracting human woman.

It's a struggle every day to get people to invest financially in portrayals of women that aren't satisfying to straight white men.

Most people privilege the technology, almost as if actors are in service to the machine.

On some sets, if a helicopter goes by, what would normally happen is that somebody would go, 'There's a helicopter. Stop.' I'd never stop for a helicopter. I am always trying to make sure that the machine is in service to the actors.

For me, when I'm not working, the day goes by so fast. I never have enough time - getting a manicure, getting a pedicure, getting my workout in, making sure that I ate healthy. Those things can become treacherous to the mind.

Perfection would be something that you see in 'Architectural Digest.'

You must speak the vision of your project in a way that convinces people to pay for it. If they won't pay for it, that is the artist's fault. It is my fault. It is your fault. It is not the executive's fault or the world's.