I worked half my life to be an overnight success, and still it took me by surprise.

A long apprenticeship is the most logical way to success. The only alternative is overnight stardom, but I can't give you a formula for that.

One press account said I was an overnight success. I thought that was the longest night I've ever spent.

Success doesn't happen overnight.

There is no royal flower strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it, for whatever success I have attained has been the result of much hard work and many sleepless nights.

It takes 20 years to make an overnight success.

Tonight I should like to thank all those who have shared my work and to acknowledge the debt that I owe to my wife whose encouragement to put research before all other things has been a great strength to me.

This is just what I have thought when I have seen slaves at work - they seem to go through the motions of labor without putting strength into them. They keep their powers in reserve for their own use at night, perhaps.

When we do 'Sports Illustrated,' it starts the night before. You do a St. Tropez tan that night, then baby oil gel, then body color.

I went to every sports contest for my kids. I turned off my cell phone at 8 P.M. I did have to travel relentlessly and had some nights at black tie events. But when I was home, I was home.

Oh, 'Sports Night' was tough because 'Sports Night' was... Well, you know, it's like Mamet. It's Sorkin. And I didn't realize that you had to immediately be off of the other actors' last line in their dialogue.

I love sports - I am a die-hard fan of soccer, and I am always at Maracana Stadium in Rio watching Flamengo play. I am also a big fan of basketball; I stay up at night to watch Lebron James play whenever I can.

There have been times - and not just on 'The Newsroom,' but on 'The West Wing,' 'Sports Night,' 'Studio 60'... - where it was hard to look the cast and crew in the eye, when I put a script on the table that I knew just wasn't good enough.

Buying sports cars, going to expensive nightclubs, spraying people with champagne and things like that - what I learnt is that it wasn't for me, and, in fact, I feel pretty empty after doing that.

I was a huge theater geek growing up, and that was not the easiest thing in the world, especially growing up in Chicago, where sports are really the norm. I was always off to the theater at night, from 7 years old on. Friends there in the Midwest who could talk to you about the idiosyncrasies of 'Pippin' were few and far between.

The X Games have done night and day for snowboarding and action sports.

I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect. Between homework and sports and drama and being social, I slept about four hours a night through high school and college.

I love both the sun and the moon, day and night. But I enjoy the day the most because I live in Rio and I can play sports.

Bobby Knight told me this: 'There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.' In other words a good offense wins.

Your phone needs to recharge every night. Your laptop needs to recharge. Everything needs to recharge. Are you giving yourself space, time and effort to recharge?

I always wanted to be a cowboy, and Jedi Knights are basically cowboys in space, right?

I enjoy some nights in the studio. I'm not the greatest person in an enclosed space; I'm a live player by birth - like a gypsy folk player, I just sit in the corner and play.

The stars look the same from night to night. Nebulae and galaxies are dully immutable, maintaining the same overall appearance for thousands or millions of years. Indeed, only the sun, moon and planets - together with the occasional comet, asteroid or meteor - seem dynamic.

Who among us has never looked up into the heavens on a starlit night, lost in wonder at the vastness of space and the beauty of the stars?