Quotes from Lisa Joy

I was actually born a robot, so 'Westworld' is just autobiographical.

When we were thinking of 'Westworld' and doing it with HBO, what they really showed us is that they have the ambition in their network, and they value production value as much as we did, and that that would be a perfect place to do a show of this scope and this ambition.

Being a lawyer, it's like holding a key card to a parallel dimension of rule sets in the world, and it's lovely to make sure that key continues to work and to continue to brush up on the law every so often.

The sad thing is I don't think I've seen 'Jurassic Park.' Not that it's not an amazing movie, I literally didn't watch film or TV until I was 23 or something.

For me, when I started writing, it was mostly poetry. And poetry is very visual. I feel the same way about the way that I approach direction. There might be a theme within the visuals that you're choosing that people don't consciously pick up on, but that they feel.

You have to be very specific with the suggestions of how you want to show things, not just with dialogue but also place and mood. I write all of that as very vivid guidelines so directors can come in and do what they will with them.

The humanities are not something that get you a pension and health insurance.

A lot of times, people say, 'My work didn't suffer with family.' I would go a step further: My career only flourished upon having children. It got better.

When I first began writing, it was not in screenwriting but in poetry. That form was so evocative, all about the image and the emotion captured in a Polaroid-like smattering of words.

Our memories, the way we tend to experience them, are sort of fuzzy around the edges, like a watercolor that has bled into the past and is not totally clear.

There are no coincidences in 'Westworld.'

We subverted the entire premise of 'Westworld' in that our sympathies are meant to be with the robots, the hosts.

I was always interested in writing from an early age, but it seemed so far away and inconceivable, like wanting to be an astronaut or a pop star.

I think the thing that will endure about Westworld will be the questions it poses.

I log on and there are so many cookies embedded in my computer - it's like they know what I need before I do.

Even though I grew up in America, at home we spoke mostly Chinese, because my mom is from Taiwan.

For me, I've always been fascinated by tales of the Chinese railroad and the workers and the conditions of the workers who built the railroad.

The most damaging part of pervasive bias, whether it's implicit or complicit because sometimes it can be well-intentioned, is when that bias gets internalized and women start self-centering and stop thinking that they're incapable of achieving what they want and achieve empowerment.

No matter how long my day job hours were, I always made time to write. I wrote fiction, short stories, and poetry. I never shared it with anybody.

What's so bad about Google knowing I need Kleenex? Look at it in the aggregate - see how information... can be used to target people based on their profiles and change the course of human history, as I believe it is already beginning to do. This knowledge that I need Kleenex has bigger complications than just needing Kleenex.

I do love Westerns. But, in a way, traditional Westerns, for me, have been hard to love viscerally and personally.

Traditional westerns typify some of the hardships men face: you have to be rugged, silent, stoic. It's a man against nature, against the world.

When I used to watch Westerns, I could admire the craft, but I never really loved them; they never spoke to me. Maybe because I'm first-generation American, I'm a woman, and I just didn't see myself reflected.

For me, writing became a way of processing not just my own experiences, but the experiences of other people, and their pain.