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.

Like the color black, business mixed with anything turns to business.

The lack of women directors is a sad fact of life. Kathryn Bigelows thrilling Best Director win may help turn things around.

Ego problems are endemic in every walk of life, but in the movie business egomaniacs are megalomaniacs.

In most fields of endeavor there are no easy jobs; there are only graceful ways of performing difficult ones.

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.

nerve, not talent, is the one necessary and sufficient trait for success. (Wouldn't it be ideal if it were talent? But talent with no nerve is like the sound of one hand clapping.