I made a series of wrong decisions about moderately recent books, and I've sold the rights to studios for ridiculous amounts of money and the films have never been made. That's the saddest thing of all, because they're locked up and no one else can m...
Unfortunately, we are not painters and authors, where we can do something in isolation. We require a lot of money to create what we create. It's almost like being an architect: You can't be an architect and build whatever buildings you want to.
Nobody wants to read about the honest lawyer down the street who does real estate loans and wills. If you want to sell books, you have to write about the interesting lawyers - the guys who steal all the money and take off. That's the fun stuff.
Once you make a movie like 'Superbad,' when it's popular and you're the lead, you get offered all kinds of things and there's a temptation to make bad movies either for the money or to maintain your relevance in pop culture.
Disasters redistribute money from taxpayers to construction workers, from insurance companies to homeowners, and even from those who once lived in the destroyed city to those who replace them. It's remarkable that this redistribution can happen so sm...
Rhythm and blues started even before phonograph records were being produced because black people entertained themselves. It wasn't done for money. It was done for entertainment. Most white people didn't know anything about this because prejudice kept...
At a time when special interest money is being showered on legislators in Washington, grassroots donors offer members of Congress a refreshing independence. The $25 and $50 donor is not looking for special favors. He or she is simply expecting their ...
Right now I'm so old that if I had a big gush of money, I don't know what I'd do with it. I don't travel anymore. I don't need anything, don't want anything. I'd give it to my son, I guess, and let him enjoy it.
I can pour myself into Bon Iver. It's a thing about self- and mental discovery, and those are all important things. But it's not 148-shows-over-a-year-and-a-half important, though. It's a machine, and it's money, and you just get put on this indie ro...
Society has a hyper emphasis on thin, and that trend comes from the consumers - it does not come from the fashion industry. The fashion industry needs to make money; that's what we do. If people said, 'We want a 300 pound purple person,' the first in...
The Internet is all about accessing entertainment. Realistically, 50 to 80 percent of all traffic is people downloading stuff for free. If you can turn that huge market share into something that you can monetize, even if it is just with ads, you will...
I always thought money was something just to make me happy. But I've learned that I feel better being able to help my folks, 'cause we never had nothing. So just to see them excited about my career is more of a blessing than me actually having it for...
A company can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on firewalls, intrusion detection systems and encryption and other security technologies, but if an attacker can call one trusted person within the company, and that person complies, and if the att...
I make a lot of money. I can take a pay cut. All my friends are taking pay cuts that are in the unions, that are - that are farming in Alabama or whatever it is. I can surely take a pay cut, too, not cutting down my show or - or the people that work ...
People be saying, 'Watch - when she gets some money, she's going to get a Gucci purse.' But I don't think that's my style. I like finding random stuff and random brands. Maybe one day when I'm sophisticated and older I might settle down and invest in...
Honestly, when I had the idea to make 'An Inconvenient Truth,' and I was going out and raising the money, and I said, 'I want to make a movie about Al Gore's slide show, will you give me a million dollars?' People thought I was insane, looked at me c...
So when my film career took off, I always felt like I was trying to play catch-up because I hadn't studied acting before. I didn't know how to manage money or my career. When I look back, I think I was a little bit shell-shocked.
I just feel like I have when I started making a lot of money, I started spreading it out to people. Mickelson, the whole deal, the over-tip: if I see a guy that looks like he needs a hand out or something, I'll pull something out and give him somethi...
The big advantage that we have as a venture capital firm over a hedge fund or a mutual fund is we have a 13-year lockup on our money. And so enterprise can go in and out of fashion four different times, and we can go and invest in one of these compan...
If you really believe that you're making a difference and that you can leave a legacy of better schools and jobs and safer streets, why would you not spend the money? The objective is to improve the schools, bring down crime, build affordable housing...
I tried to get a job as a TV cameraman and they basically told me, 'You're mad, everyone wants these jobs - and if you go to England, you're doubly mad.' But I worked in abattoirs for 10 months to earn my money, then left for London. I didn't even kn...
