I don't want my child to have unhealthy values.
— Dawn Steel
It wasn't until I saw 'Rocky' that I realized movies could affect people beyond mere entertainment.
I started with nothing. Less than nothing.
I've gone far in the movie business, but no matter how far I go, every time I pick up the phone to call Tom Hanks or Robin Williams, I wonder if they'll call me back. And you know what? Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.
I think women's relationships with other women are very complicated and depend on their relationships with their mothers. Mine was fraught with problems. So I didn't necessarily trust women for a long time.
I felt that if I shared the lessons that I learned - both the good ones and the bad ones - that I might make the climb a little less painful for other women.
You have to persevere, you have to just not give up, and you have to know what you want. You have to be able to see your dream.
You do sequels because they are tent poles. They open well, and they hold the tent up. But in between, you make a movie you respect.
Historically, Vietnam movies have been profitable. All of them. 'Platoon,' 'Full Metal Jacket,' 'Apocalypse Now,' 'The Deer Hunter.' You're looking at movies that have been not pretty successful, but very successful. The foreign numbers have been extraordinary.
The men I worked for didn't look at me as having any gender at all. They regarded me more as a workhorse.
It's about passion, and if somebody is passionate about a development deal, they're going to get it made.
I'd like my epitaph to read 'Given the amount of time she had, she did the best job she could.' Also that I'm a nice person... and a good mother.
I was trained to be loud, passionate, direct. I didn't realize for the longest time I was intimidating.
It's unfathomable how you live without your mother.
In my family, education was something you endured. My parents weren't educated past high school, and the only book in our house was a 'Reader's Digest' condensed book. Can you imagine?
I wanted to be respected by filmmakers, and why should they respect me if they saw that my superiors did not treat me with respect.
In some ways I was curt because there's an unbelievable amount to accomplish in a day.
I felt more comfortable in TV than in the film world where the players were more erudite and intellectual.
I thought it was great being the only girl in the room. I loved the attention. After I got used to it, I didn't want to be the only girl in the room. I had no one to talk to.
If I can do it, anyone can do it.
An epic is the canvas Brian DePalma paints on.
I don't know that I would say abrasive. In some ways, I was curt because there's an unbelievable amount to accomplish in a day, and maybe I was insensitive considering the pressures and responsibilities of these jobs.
I hate management. I hate management. I just do.
I just love the idea of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, whether it's the success of 'Cool Runnings,' which is the success of four guys from Jamaica who had never seen snow, or whether it's my success, just as a human being.
We have to make some movies we have passion for, respect for.
I love stories about underdogs.
Foreign revenues are tremendously important, but foreign audiences are dying for American movies, not for films they could make themselves.
Having money is better than not having it, but I've been poor, and I've survived.
Working together is the quickest road to marital problems.
If you can market smut and toilet paper, you can market movies.
Some friends of mine had parents who made school a treat, a gift - not something to be endured.
That's my proudest accomplishment: that I don't feel like a grown-up.
I was so busy climbing up this ladder, staying above the water. If there was only room for one woman in a room, I wanted to be her. I'm not proud of it. I certainly don't feel that way now. It was an absolute evolution for me.
It hurt me deeply, this reputation as tough, hard, mean.
You're not free in life until you're free of wanting other people's approval.
The more I can stay on the creative side, the happier I am.
A really hard lesson to learn is that most of the time, it's not about you.
The first war movie I ever saw was 'Platoon,' and I was eight months pregnant. So my husband, producer Charles Roven, wasn't sure I'd make it.
I react to stress badly. I handle it better these days. But I'm a very straightforward person.
Don't believe everything you read in the trades.
Visibility is dangerous because if a guy cuts you off in traffic, you can't call him a name - it might get to the press.
I was the first studio executive to meet with Sean Penn after 'Taps' in 1981. I was anxious to develop things with him when nobody knew who he was.
People on the lower rungs are more vulnerable to sexual harassment than those at the top.
When I get anxious and scared, I probably lose my temper more than I should.
I wouldn't want anyone to think that work is the major thing in my life.
I'm tired of being the bad guy all the time, saying 'no' to people I like.
I had an obsession with underarm shields - pointy ones, round ones, full ones, half ones.
I have to tell you, I'm a great teacher. Ask anybody who worked for me, except some secretaries who weren't very good.
I would walk into my office, and I would close the door, and I would say, 'I won't cry, I won't cry, I won't cry'... At least, I wasn't going to let them see me cry.
I'm not Mary Poppins, but I think I functioned with integrity.
