Lynda Obst Quotes

• True power is invisible and impeccable, like good taste. It is never clumsy or artless. Powerful people whisper, suggest, seduce, in order to coerce. They only use volume for effect. This is how you can tell a blowhard from a mogul. ... Most powerful people don't need to coerce; their mere presence is coercive.

  Lynda Obst

  Powerful, Order, True Power

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lynda Obst

  Successful, Numbers, Romance

  4 Copy quote

• Always remember the famous adage about the movie business: You can't make a living, you can only get rich.

  Lynda Obst

  Hollywood, Remember, Rich

  4 Copy quote

• It is just as important to move on in the wake of stunning success as in the wake of disaster.

  Lynda Obst

  Success, Moving, Important

  4 Copy quote

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

  Lynda Obst

  Careers, Events, Make Or Break

  6 Copy quote

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

  Lynda Obst

  Business, Color, Black

  5 Copy quote

• [On filmmaking:] Cardinal rule: It's a youth business.

  Lynda Obst

  Movie, Hollywood, Youth

  4 Copy quote

• with all these tentpoles, franchises, reboots and sequels, is there still room for movies in the movie business?

  Lynda Obst

  Movie, Rooms, Stills

  Lynda Obst (2014). “Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business”, p.6, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• The only way I can access all my strength is to relax. ... The paradox is that you must learn to be relaxed while using all your power.

  Lynda Obst

  Relax, Way, Paradox

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lynda Obst

  Moving, Thinking, Keys

  4 Copy quote

• Information is currency. ... Power is a place as well as a verb; it is inside the information tent.

  Lynda Obst

  Power, Information, Tents

  4 Copy quote

• One of our jobs is to keep women working, which we do by keeping women coming to the movies. And doing that means making good, smart, often funny movies that women can identify with-with terrific dialogue we all remember and cherish, and stories that illuminate our lives and decisions and turning points.

  Lynda Obst

  Jobs, Smart, Mean

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lynda Obst

  Powerful, Distance, Player

  7 Copy quote

• I think there are always actor parts, and then there are movie-star parts, and an actors always an actor until he does a movie-star part.

  Lynda Obst

  Stars, Thinking, Doe

  7 Copy quote

• Every single one of us who has been a Woman in Film for more than five minutes is sick of the phrase Women in Film.

  Lynda Obst

  Sick, Phrases, Film

  4 Copy quote

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

  Lynda Obst

  Winning, Directors, May

  4 Copy quote

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

  Lynda Obst

  Development, Starting Out, Firsts

  4 Copy quote

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

  Lynda Obst

  Jobs, Work, Way

  4 Copy quote

• What turns a work crisis into a life crisis is the infusion of dread.

  Lynda Obst

  Work, Trouble, Infusion

  4 Copy quote

• Everything can be undone, including success.

  Lynda Obst

  Success, Undone, Including

  4 Copy quote

• My sense of Los Angeles was very New York provincial, as in 'all those people are crazy out there' (which they are), and stupid (which they're not), and immoral (it's more interesting than that).

  Lynda Obst

  Movie, New York, Stupid

  5 Copy quote

• My goal has been to learn how to get movies made without losing sight of the reasons I began. I have had to learn to recognize the insidious nature of the beast without becoming one.

  Lynda Obst

  Movie, Becoming One, Sight

  4 Copy quote

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

  Lynda Obst

  Movie, Ego Problem, Egomaniacs

  4 Copy quote

• There is a fine line between perseverance and madness.

  Lynda Obst

  Perseverance, Lines, Madness

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lynda Obst

  Courage, Hands, Sound

  4 Copy quote

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