Damon Lindelof

I've always believed that a good twist is one that, when it is presented to the audience, half of them say, 'I saw that coming.' And half of them are completely and totally shocked. Because if you don't have the half that saw it coming, then it wasn't fair: You never gave the audience a chance to guess it.

I'm not sitting around thinking of ideas for TV shows.

The year that 'Lost' started and premiered was, without a doubt, the most miserable year of my life. The level of despair and anguish that I was feeling; I was clinically depressed, and anyone that you talked to who knew me at the time will tell you that.

I love the 'Lost' ending. I stand by it, but there are a lot of people out there who hate it.

When someone says something that really hurts me, I have to retweet it to let it go.

When someone says something in an interview, the beauty of Twitter is that it's a platform for instantaneous response.

I think 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy has a very satisfying ending, and there's not really that deep of a mythological construct.

I'll never be immune to criticism, and that's okay, and I'm very comfortable with that.

Connecting dots is not that rewarding of an experience.

I think that, at the end of the day, I'm drawn to a certain level of ambiguous storytelling that requires hard thought and work in the same way that the 'New York Times' crossword puzzle does: Sometimes you just want to put it down or throw it out the window, but there's a real rewarding sense if you feel like you've cracked it.

Good twists are enormously hard to come by, and I think the best ones are earned ones. The idea that a story can take a left turn on you, it's easy to do, but it has to be done very, very carefully, or else you risk losing the audience's trust.

Michael Arndt, that guy - you're just supposed to say nice things about other writers, but I worship Michael Arndt.

All great sci-fi is: Be careful what you wish for.

I've always felt that really good prequels should be original movies.

I think that 'The Shield' was a phenomenal series finale.

The fun thing about doing origin stories is you are introducing the audience to characters.

I've always been fascinated by Disneyland and Disney World, and my favorite part of the park was always Tomorrowland.

'Star Wars' is a galaxy a long time ago, far, far away. 'Star Wars' is not about our future.

We all look at ourselves in the mirror and think, 'Am I good?'

I was born in 1973, so I did not see 'Alien' when it was released theatrically. I saw 'Alien' when it was on Home Box Office. I think I was probably 10.

When I saw 'Blade Runner,' my understanding was that 'Blade Runner' and 'Alien' were sequels to each other - or they were related. They were set in the same world.

I have found, unfortunately, that if I take on too many projects at one time, there is a higher probability of those projects sucking.

I always remember liking school.

There is no suspense in inevitability.

I don't think anybody wants to see a dour 'Star Trek' movie.