What I love about the Don Draper character is that he's so real and filled with all these contradictions.

I only know two to three people that I grew up with in advertising in the 1960s who are married to the same women.

Whether you're a mafia guy or in advertising, you always end up going back to your family.

I once attended an advertising conference held at the Greenbrier Hotel in 1968. The dean of the original Mad Men, the great David Ogilvy, was the keynote speaker. The subject of his speech was the new creative revolution in advertising.

By 1961, when I got my first copywriting job, 'my kind' were suddenly in demand. The creative revolution had begun. Advertising had turned into a business dominated by young, funny, Jewish copywriters and tough, sometimes violent, Greek and Italian art directors.

I came into the advertising business in 1952, at the age of sixteen, as a delivery boy for a stuffy, old-line advertising agency named Ruthruff and Ryan, which could have served as the setting for the 'Mad Men' television series without moving a desk.

I always had more women working for me than men.

I have very talented art directors in my agency who start out telling me, 'Well, this is what the picture is... ' I ask, 'Well, what's the headline?' and they say, 'We haven't done that yet, but it looks this way.' But I'm still writing copy, almost every day.

I think it's good to have switched to a much more visual world and that people are not all that interested in words.

My grandmother would start making her meat sauce at 7 in the morning on Sunday, and within five or six hours, that smell would be all through the house.

In my world - advertising - the Super Bowl is judgment day. If politicians have Election Day and Hollywood has the Oscars, advertising has the Super Bowl.

The establishment can't change. It can't give people anything different; it can't make the turn.

Most account guys live with fear in their hearts.

I don't remember most of the '60s and '70s.

There are no client conflicts, only bad explanations.

I'm a driver, and I love it.

The Internet is king. Newspapers are dead or dying. Magazines are shrinking every day. Ad budgets are being cut. The bottom line is now the only line in advertising.

The Google model of targeted advertising is appealing because it claims to cut down on waste. We need to ask how that efficiency can be brought to creative process.

Money is being wasted on adverts that go right over a consumer's head. They may win awards at Cannes, but they lose at the cash register.

It is now possible to target adverts to the right person at the right time in the right place. But that is not enough.

People don't generally like advertising that takes a stand.

Sometimes you have to scare people to save their lives. But I'm very much against it if you're trying to sell a product.

If the FBI is now in charge of bad taste, we're all doomed.

People who are visiting Long Island find it's very beautiful, and they are quick to try Long Island foods, wines and other products.