Steven Bochco

Imagery is like music.

— Steven Bochco

Privately, we always called 'Hill Street' 'Cop Soap.'

— Steven Bochco

If bad taste were a felony, every writer I know would've done prison time.

— Steven Bochco

Film provides an opportunity to marry the power of ideas with the power of images.

— Steven Bochco

I remember practically every joke I've ever heard in my life.

— Steven Bochco

I think the best work flows out of a collaborative environment.

— Steven Bochco

Being a good television screenwriter requires an understanding of the way film accelerates the communication of words.

— Steven Bochco

You have to give directors and cinematographers a word blueprint for visuals, but I had to learn that from experience.

— Steven Bochco

When it is perceived that a show has gone awry, the pressure is staggering, and as a writer caught in that storm,…

— Steven Bochco

Hill Street Blues might have been the first television show that had a memory. One episode after another was part of a…

— Steven Bochco

When you look at Mark Zuckerberg and Snapchat and all these twentysomething billionaires, it's really kind of fascinating; a classic tale of…

— Steven Bochco

One of the problems of writing is that anyone who commits themselves to that process has to believe that they're good.

— Steven Bochco

Casting is sort of like looking at paintings. You don't know what you'll like, but you recognize it when you see it.

— Steven Bochco

Hill Street Blues gave me an opportunity to work with an ensemble cast of people whose work I admired.

— Steven Bochco

Vivid images are like a beautiful melody that speaks to you on an emotional level. It bypasses your logic centers and even…

— Steven Bochco

The thing that always interests me from a storytelling point of view is how that moment of trauma, whatever the trauma is,…

— Steven Bochco

The entertainment world, television, movies, social media, YouTube stuff, we're so bombarded with so much imagery and such a great sense of…

— Steven Bochco

I tend not to spend a lot of time looking in the rearview mirror. If you say, 'Oh, I did 'Hill Street…

— Steven Bochco

The thing that has always interested me in the kinds of shows that I do have more to do with the consequences…

— Steven Bochco

I'd always thought that 'NYPD Blue' really would open those doors. While I think it created a much broader template for cable,…

— Steven Bochco

Cop shows are by definition melodramatic; they're larger than life. They create very stark contrasts and conflicts emotionally. They're provocative, assuming they…

— Steven Bochco

When all of your decisions are based on economics, you end up with a sameness of vision. You're not taking the risks,…

— Steven Bochco

'Hill Street,' because of the wacky nature of many of our characters, really allowed us to indulge a kind of cheek-to-jowl juxtaposition…

— Steven Bochco

Television and film are such streamlined story mediums. You can't really meander about, whereas a novel is an interior experience.

— Steven Bochco