Quotes from Andrea Seigel

Louis CK knows that just because a joke is using space as a resource instead of something to be crammed like a hamper, this doesn't mean a story isn't happening.

I'd go to the library so I could sit in a big, quiet room and listen to pages being turned. There was a boring librarian who everyone in fifth grade hated. But I loved her because when she would read us stories in her soft voice, she'd turn my head into a snow globe.

For me, one of the most beautiful and rewarding aspects of serial reality TV is that characters can move freely along a spectrum of heroism and villainy.

I've never read any of the '50 Shades of Grey' books because the Internet pre-educated me about the 'my inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves' material.

Allowing alternative narrative modes in popular entertainment may seem obvious, yet when you turn a pilot into the people upstairs and the main character isn't after what she wants by the top of page two, you get treated as if you've failed at writing.

'Real Housewives of New Jersey' has taught me more about the nature of a vacuum in space than any of the demonstrations in my high school AP physics textbook.

Irvine is such a safe, stable, planned community, and I'm a person who has a lot of inner longing for drama and romance. So I think in some way the structure of Irvine made me more creative because I had these boundaries, and I thought outside them.

I advise all my novel students to write in the company of 'Veronica Mars.'

Irvine, being a planned community, is really good shorthand, especially in a movie or book, for understanding suburban pressures.

I was 11 years old when I saw the first season of 'The Real World.' Initially, I was drawn to the show because it was what I imagined the adult version of my life should be.

I do not believe that I will ever write an adult novel from an animal's point of view unless someday it becomes suddenly appealing to me to make a narrator a mentally ill pet. Never say never.

Viewers make online requests to their favorite video-making whisperers to do the things that trigger their head tingles. Everyone's needs are different. It's like an interactive choose-your-own-adventure.

Ultimately, criticism that 'The Real World' has devolved into a lesser enterprise comes from the viewers who came of age alongside it, not the teens of the moment that MTV has always existed for.

Old-school viewers remain adamant that 'The Real World' has deteriorated, as if the original enterprise were some pristine experiment that got sullied as the conditions in the lab got sloppier.

If there is one thing for which the 'Real Housewives' franchise deserves artistic recognition, it is the patient and immaculate building of a villain.