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Portraying as human the people you hear about on the news doing bad things is dangerous. But it's also necessary and important.

You know, as director of the CIA, I got an awful lot of intelligence about all the horrible things that could go on across the world.

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

I think the world is full of evil people. I think in some ways we're in more danger now than before.

The perpetrators of the actual bad stuff that does real and lasting harm to people, like leakage of industrial chemicals into water systems, seem to get not so much as a second glance; the bloviation from media pundits and think tanks creates false problems that waste time and energy debunking.

I don't write about good and evil with this enormous dichotomy. I write about people. I write about people doing the kinds of things that people do.

I think people have turned terrorists into these larger-than-life devils and so are unable to write about them in the obvious way, which is as human, petty, bumbling.

People have different relationships with power. I suppose a large portion of the 'Homeland' audience aligns with the U.S., sort of against the enemies. We certainly have the CIA viewpoint on the world - and it's their job.

People like to invent enemies. It spares us the need to address complex worldviews.

I think one of the reasons that we like conspiracy theories is I think that we like to feel like there is a group of people who are so smart and powerful that they can pull the wool over an entire country or in fact even an entire world's eyes. That certainly makes us feel like somehow we're protected, even if it's not in our best interest.