Daily Inspiration Quote by Steven Bochco

Writing, Bochco suggests, isn’t just craft; it’s a daily act of self-authorized confidence. The “problem” isn’t grammar or plot. It’s the psychological toll of showing up to a blank page while carrying the suspicion that you might be wasting everyone’s time, including your own. To commit to writing - not dabble, not fantasize, but actually do it - requires a baseline delusion: the belief that your voice is worth the oxygen it takes to put words on paper.

Coming from Bochco, a producer who helped define modern TV drama (Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, NYPD Blue), the line reads like an industry truth disguised as a personal confession. Television writing is collaborative and constantly evaluated: notes, ratings, network politics, the unglamorous churn of deadlines. In that environment, “believe that they’re good” isn’t arrogance; it’s survival equipment. Without it, you can’t pitch, you can’t rewrite, you can’t defend a risky choice long enough for it to become the thing that works.

The subtext is a quiet indictment of the romance myth that talent simply reveals itself. Bochco is pointing to the less flattering engine behind productivity: a writer must, at least intermittently, overrule evidence. Rejection, mediocrity, the bad draft, the episode that doesn’t land - none of that stops the process unless you let it. His line exposes the bargain: to make anything, you have to grant yourself permission before anyone else does.