Love and friendship, two of life's abiding rewards, are endangered species in Hollywood. People crave both, mistaking alliance for friendship, lust for love, and ambition for both.

Everything can be undone, including success.

To whom one reports is a unit of measure. It measures the exact distance between the player and the center of power. It is the closest we can get to a calibrated answer to the question 'How big am I?' More than the size of an executive's office or even his title, which no one remembers anyway, the fewer people between the player and a 'yes,' the more powerful he is.

No single movie or event makes or breaks your career. Everything can be undone, including success.

The key to moving a maybe to a yes is to make the buyer feel as though other buyers have already said yes. ... It helps if it's true, but it never is. No one wants to be the first yes. Why is this? I don't know, but I think it's anthropological.

When I was starting out, the first women studio heads and writers were just getting into their perches - development execs learning their chops.

The first thing you notice about women in Hollywood, besides their low percentage of body fat, is how few are married. And the number of great-looking, successful single women without a social life is staggering. ... The most glaring misconception about Hollywood is that it is the romance capital of the world.