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Brian Grazer Quotes

Powerful Brian Grazer for Daily Growth

Everybody in Hollywood has to beat the 'no' - and if you write code in Silicon Valley, or if you design cars in Detroit, if you manage hedge funds in Lower Manhattan, you also have to learn to beat the 'no.'

- Brian Grazer

Hollywood, Everybody, Code, Manhattan

I like learning stuff. The more information you can get about a person or a subject, the more you can pour into a potential project. I made a decision to do different things. I want to do things that have a better chance of being thought of as original. I do everything I can to disrupt my comfort zone.

- Brian Grazer

Thought, About, Subject, Comfort Zone

They say that life is tough enough. But I guess I like to make things difficult on myself, because I do that all the time. Every day and on purpose. That's because I believe in disrupting my comfort zone.

- Brian Grazer

Purpose, Believe, Every Day, Comfort Zone

I don't keep a list of people I want to talk to. It's organic. But I'd like to interview Tom Brady. Someday I'd love to meet Vladimir Putin. I'd ask him how he sees the landscape of the world, what could make it better, how that could be done.

- Brian Grazer

Love, Him, How, Putin

My world was small growing up. I never really left the three-mile radius of my tiny neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley.

- Brian Grazer

Small, San, Really, Fernando

A producer is supposed to generate an idea for a movie. And then they're supposed to create the team, the group of people that are gonna make this movie. And within that team, the producer has to have a creative vision and a fiscal vision, and they have to adhere to both things.

- Brian Grazer

Movie, Idea, Within, Generate

I probably should have a brand, but I think you can't get the best artists to work for you if you're branded. I get the trade-off, and I really would like to be more famous for my work, get more credit for my achievements.

- Brian Grazer

Think, Famous, I Think, Branded

The Porsche was just a vehicle to get to another place. I used it to change people's perceptions of me. I had grown up really middle class. USC was filled with elitists, richies who would go skiing every weekend. So I pretended like I was part of that world - to be accepted.

- Brian Grazer

Porsche, Another, USC, Perceptions

Artists, whether they're Tom Cruise or John Waters or Ron Howard or Oliver Stone, you can empower them to become a better version of themselves, but you cannot change them 180 degrees to be someone they are not.

- Brian Grazer

Degrees, Ron, Tom Cruise, Stone

In Hollywood, people tend to have the same sensibilities, the same taste and values, and I didn't want to spend my life that way. I wanted to have a bigger, more interesting life.

- Brian Grazer

My Life, Bigger, Hollywood, Hollywood People

I started in TV movies and then had success in my move to features with 'Night Shift' and 'Splash'.

- Brian Grazer

Night, Move, TV, TV Movies

I thought law school was more like the guillotine. I didn't really think I would make it; I just thought this is one of the few ways to potentially get respect, to go to law school.

- Brian Grazer

Law, Thought, Think, Law School

A movie has to get good reviews, high grosses - it has to beat expectations. The same thing with television and the ratings. But being curious isn't like that. It's not a public thing. It's private, and the test is a private one. You have to be on your toes.

- Brian Grazer

Curious, Movie, Private, Ratings

I don't like to boss people around. I don't get motivated by telling people what to do, I don't take any pleasure in it. So I manage with curiosity, by asking questions.

- Brian Grazer

Boss, Motivated, Telling, Manage

Curiosity at work isn't a matter of style. It's much more powerful than that. If you're the boss, and you manage by asking questions, you're laying the foundation for the culture of your company or your group. You're letting people know that the boss is willing to listen.

- Brian Grazer

Boss, Asking, Willing, Manage

Hollywood is a land of style, a world where how you present yourself matters. Many of the people working here are so dramatically good-looking - that is their style. That's not me, and I know that.

- Brian Grazer

Here, Hollywood, Many, Dramatically

Where do I get the confidence to be different? A lot of it comes from curiosity. I spent years as a young man trying to understand the business I'm in. I have spent decades staying connected to how the rest of the world works.

- Brian Grazer

Young, Works, Staying, Decades

Now, I'm a pretty fast and avid reader. But you can't learn the same things in a book or on the Internet that you can in a personal talk with somebody.

- Brian Grazer

Learn, Pretty, Reader, Avid

By having a little bit of knowledge about many different things, it enables me to talk to people about a subject that they would not ordinarily think I could talk about. It's a lever for me, I suppose.

- Brian Grazer

Think, Having, Subject, Different Things

Almost every person that I had a preconception of, I was wrong. With Edward Teller, I was right. He was an autocrat and a technocrat, with no feeling for humanity.

- Brian Grazer

Had, Almost, Edward, Teller

I met Edward Teller. Everything he believed in and stood for was antithetical to what I believed in and stood for. I like running into that in life. I like extreme points of view, a level of commitment - and I certainly love mastery.

- Brian Grazer

Love, Like, Certainly, Teller

No one in Hollywood really knows what a good idea is before a movie hits the screens. We only know if it's a good idea after it's done.

- Brian Grazer

Hollywood, Movie, Before, Screens

There is evidence that people do want to watch shows back to back - that's why DVR use is so high. When you're able to DVR something, people will watch more than one episode.

- Brian Grazer

Will, Evidence, Use, Something People

Being interested in other fields and meeting experts outside entertainment - whether it's a two-hour conversation with John Nash that turns into 'A Beautiful Mind' or talking to people in architecture or fashion, CIA directors or Nobel laureates - has given me a better sense of which ideas feel authentic and new.

- Brian Grazer

Feel, Entertainment, Other, Conversation

You have to know the weeds - to have lived in them - to delegate. I wouldn't want to be a leader who had never lived in the weeds.

- Brian Grazer

Leader, Never, Want, Delegate

Technology has brought us further than man could ever imagine, and it makes all information available. But it might not do the same exact thing that one human being asking another human being might do.

- Brian Grazer

Asking, Human Being, Brought, Exact

I went to USC. I wasn't a rich kid or anything like that, so I had to get a scholarship. Went to USC; my first year, I took 26 units, so I got to have a nickname. Everyone goes, 'There's 26.' So I had a nickname. Having a nickname is a good thing because then you start to get popular, and you keep that going.

- Brian Grazer

Kid, Year, USC, Scholarship

Curiosity and creating ideas ironically are both democratized; they cost no money, anyone can do them, and it's up the individual and the force of their personality to give life to them.

- Brian Grazer

Curiosity, Give, Cost, Ironically

I've been in, like, kids' clubs... I've been in the Boom Boom Room in New York, and the kids are going, 'Oh my God, you produced 'Arrested Development?'' They aren't talking about 'A Beautiful Mind' or '24.' It's like the only thing in my whole career was 'Arrested Development,' literally.

- Brian Grazer

Career, Been, Arrested, Produced

I like challenges; I like excitement. I like entering different worlds and trying to succeed - not excel, but succeed.

- Brian Grazer

Excel, Entering, Worlds, Excitement

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