A Quote by Michael Rapino

Madonna would not have done a 360 deal with us just because of our touring capability. We had to prove to her and others that we have been working on and built a very good execution capacity at Artist Nation.
It wouldn't matter if every single President since Washington had been a Bible-toting, evangelical Christian. They weren't, of course, but even if they had been, it still would not change the secular foundation of our republic. Christians like to quote various Presidents or Supreme Court Justices who (quite incorrectly) have referred to our "Christian nation." But what do those quotes prove? I could quote Richard Nixon, but would that prove that ours was intended to be a nation of crooks?
It has been a marvellous experience and a great gift collaborating with Madonna. Now that I have had the chance to see her working, I truly understand why she is so grand! I believe she is a true artist, and I am crazy about her.
I think Madonna has a great deal of intelligence and capability. I have a lot of respect for her. She's taken her career and maximized it with intelligence and creativity.
My mother used to say that when I told her that I wanted to be an artist, her famous line was, 'The only artists I've ever heard of are dead.' It just wasn't in her experience... I don't think she had a sense that one could be an artist, because there wasn't anyone in my family who had done that.
I had Madonna parties; I dressed like Madonna, and I had all of her records because we had records back then. I knew all of her lyrics; I was obsessed with her movies and the whole thing.
I probably would have no capability of absorbing a 60-defeat season as a coach. It would be a foreign experience. My whole career, even as a player, has been on winning basketball clubs and it just seems to have been a part of the make-up of what’s been given me. That’s what I’ve been given and that’s what I’ve had to deal with. Some people can make fun of it or some people can have a good time with it, or some people can resent it. It’s just what it is.
But I've been there and done that. I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody, and if somebody wants me to come, if they can afford what I ask, it's not as much as Madonna makes; not that I want what Madonna makes, but I was saying.
We have an incredible capacity for the worst possible evil, all of us, it was that we also have this incredible capacity for good. And that is why we are all of us appalled when something bad happens. Because if the bad was the norm, we would just shrug our shoulders and say "well tough luck, this is how the cookie crumbles" kind of thing but none of us does that.
Let's imagine again an observer looking at us without any preconceptions. I think he would be struck by the fact that although human beings have the capacity to develop scientific knowledge, it must be a very limited capacity because it is only done in very narrow and specific domains.
Nearly every morning, a certain woman in our community comes running out of her house with her face white and her overcoat flapping wildly. She cries out, "Emergency, emergency," and one of us runs to her and holds her until her fears are calmed. We know she is making it up; nothing is has really happened to her. But we understand, because there is hardly one of us who has no been moved at some time to do just what she has done, and every time, it has taken all our strength, and even the strength of our friends and families, too, to keep us quiet.
When you have to make a choice between capacity and capability, I would go with capability.
Thus much indeed he was obliged to acknowledge - that he had been constant unconsciously, nay unintentionally; that he had meant to forget her, and believed it to be done. He had imagined himself indifferent, when he had only been angry; and he had been unjust to her merits, because he had been a sufferer from them.
I've been joking that if Madonna taught us anything, you've got to reinvent yourself. I think it's important as a filmmaker, as any person working in the arts, that you've got to try new stuff and challenge yourself and take chances. I've tried to take a chance with every film I've done - I've never done it the easy way, and I think that's because that's what excites me, is making as big a mountain as I can in front of me, and just trying to mount it.
It would have to stand on the basis of what somebody had done to it and that would be the basis on which it would be judged. So it's a funny art form. You gain a great deal when you have good collaborators and sometimes people just don't understand what you've done.
We worked all the time, just worked and then we would be hungry and my mother was clearing up a new ground trying to help feed us for $1.25 a day. She was using an axe, just like a man, and something flew up and hit her in her eye. It eventually caused her to lose both of her eyes and I began to get sicker and sicker of the system there. I used to see my mother wear clothes that would have so many patches on them, they had been done over and over and over again. She would do that but she would try to keep us decent.
Hillary called and it was a lovely call. And it was a tough call for her. I mean, I can imagine. Tougher for her than it would have been for me and for me, it would have been very, very difficult. She couldn`t have been nicer. She just said, "Congratulations, Donald. Well done." And I said, "I want to thank you very much. You were a great competitor." She`s very strong and very smart.
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