A Quote by Brian Grazer

When I first started out in the entertainment business, I made a list of people I thought it would be good to meet. Not people who could give me a job or a deal, but people who could shake me up, teach me something, challenge my ideas about myself and the world.
Meeting people is difficult, period. LA is a difficult place to meet people anyway, and Hollywood is such a small community. But I don't make it a rule just to date other actors and people in the entertainment industry. It could work out with me and a dentist. It could work out with me and a lawyer.
At this point, a lot of people have made their mind up about me one way or another. I'm sure there's a certain segment of writers who won't ever give me the time of day, hate me, don't get me, don't think I'm good, or whatever. I guess that's fine. It's only an opinion. There are other people who do get it, and can be objective. I could be wrong, but a lot of people, except for really young people, have made up their minds one way or the other.
I didn't know they would pay you money to sit in a room and write songs for other people. I always thought that George Strait was singing a song, he made it up, and that was the end of it. But the instant I found that out, that that could be a job, I thought, 'That's the job for me. I gotta figure out how to do that.'
I think, when I started to become successful in the movie business, my mother was very, very worried. She thought no one would want to marry me and she thought that was the most important thing. And she thought that it would affect my personal relations. And she said how worried she was that people would take advantage of me or I would meet the wrong people. When I was made head of the studio, one of her first things was, "Well, now no one will marry you. I hope you'll be happy, whatever."
A hero does for others. He would do anything for people he loves, because he knows it would make their lives better. I am not that kind of person, but I want you to be. You could give something to her, to me, to those children in the quarter. You could give something I never could ... The white people out there are saying you don't have it-that you're a hog, not a man. But I know they are wrong.
I started working out, eating a good diet, and just did everything I could that I thought would benefit me. I also started studying a lot harder in school. It matured me a remarkable amount and made me completely focused.
I thought I'd give myself 10 years as an entertainment journalist and build up so much clout that there was no way Hollywood could ignore me when I started delivering scripts. Little did I know they were very good at ignoring it.
I was incredibly confident on stage because that's where I loved to be. But offstage, there was no balance. I was a little shy kid that went onstage. And I always said, cocaine was the drug that made me open up. I could talk to people. But then it became the drug that closed me down. So it started out by making me talk to everyone, and then ended up by me isolating myself alone with it; which is the end of the world, really.
There were times in my career where I could have easily been traded, easily been given up on, and I think me making strides, me making a commitment to myself to come in and get better showed people what I could do each year. From there, people started to believe in me, and the organization believed in me, and once that happened, it was on me to take this thing on.
My book review site and first blog, which I started in 2003. I started it because I was lamenting that while I read so much, I could hardly remember any of it. People would ask me what good books I'd read recently, or what I thought of a particular book, and my mind would go blank. At the same time, I'd just heard of blogging and found the idea interesting and thought I'd give it a try.
The more people I meet, the more cultures I start to embrace, the more people I open myself up to - it's a growing process I'm excited about. But it's also a challenge for me, to be at this level and still be able to connect with somebody who's living that everyday life. At first it was something I struggled with, because everything was moving so fast. I didn't know how to digest it. The best thing I did was go back to the city of Compton, to touch the people who I grew up with and tell them the stories of the people I met around the world.
I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't! I thought I could do what they did. And what I didn't do well, I thought people were going to give me the opportunity to do well, because maybe they saw my talent, so they would give me a chance. I had no idea that they would see me completely different.
I would say that Barack Obama not only made me a better person but made me better at my job. He's one of the most intellectually curious people you'll ever meet and really brings that out in other people.
When I first started out, there were times I would dress or act in a way because I thought it was expected of me or that people would take me more seriously. But once I started leading in a way that was authentically me, that is when I really started to see success.
When I made that statement that the person discovers the secret of their success by their daily agenda, all of a sudden it hit me that if I could teach people to make today count; if I could really teach them what they need to do today to have a good day, that tomorrow would really take care of itself.
Music saved my life. I mean, music is life. It is everything to me. It's why I can meet people - I was so shy as a kid, and when I started to write songs and perform them with my sister in front of the public, people started to talk to me, and that made me feel really good. Everything about it has always been positive.
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