Brian Grazer

“Under no condition can you teach curiosity.”

“Curiosity and creating ideas ironically are both democratized; they cost no money, anyone can do them, and it's up the individual and the force of their personality to give life to them.”

“I don't like to boss people around. I don't get motivated by telling people what to do, I don't take any pleasure in it. So I manage with curiosity, by asking questions.”

“I worked for a couple of screamers in my early days in Hollywood. I don't like being screamed at, and I am not myself a screamer.”

“I started in TV movies and then had success in my move to features with 'Night Shift' and 'Splash'.”

“A movie has to get good reviews, high grosses - it has to beat expectations. The same thing with television and the ratings. But being curious isn't like that. It's not a public thing. It's private, and the test is a private one. You have to be on your toes.”

“I think that we all absolutely have curiosity. It brings about knowledge. It's energizing. It's spiritually empowering. It makes us more interesting as people.”

“I don't keep a list of people I want to talk to. It's organic. But I'd like to interview Tom Brady. Someday I'd love to meet Vladimir Putin. I'd ask him how he sees the landscape of the world, what could make it better, how that could be done.”

“You can get good at finding access in the entertainment business. But the ideas, the narratives themselves, they are the only things that are going to be of any value.”

“There is evidence that people do want to watch shows back to back - that's why DVR use is so high. When you're able to DVR something, people will watch more than one episode.”

“Curiosity—asking questions—isn’t just a way of understanding the world. It’s a way of changing it.”

“Almost every person that I had a preconception of, I was wrong. With Edward Teller, I was right. He was an autocrat and a technocrat, with no feeling for humanity.”

“Being interested in other fields and meeting experts outside entertainment - whether it's a two-hour conversation with John Nash that turns into 'A Beautiful Mind' or talking to people in architecture or fashion, CIA directors or Nobel laureates - has given me a better sense of which ideas feel authentic and new.”

“I know just how often people get told 'no' to their brilliant ideas - not just most of the time, but 90 percent of the time.”

“I like challenges; I like excitement. I like entering different worlds and trying to succeed - not excel, but succeed.”

“Nothing to me is unexpected. No disappointment is unexpected - whether it's movies or people or relationships. I'm always ready for the punch directly between the eyes. So I get hurt, but I never get hurt. Happens all the time.”

“I probably should have a brand, but I think you can't get the best artists to work for you if you're branded. I get the trade-off, and I really would like to be more famous for my work, get more credit for my achievements.”

“The Porsche was just a vehicle to get to another place. I used it to change people's perceptions of me. I had grown up really middle class. USC was filled with elitists, richies who would go skiing every weekend. So I pretended like I was part of that world - to be accepted.”

“Where do I get the confidence to be different? A lot of it comes from curiosity. I spent years as a young man trying to understand the business I'm in. I have spent decades staying connected to how the rest of the world works.”

“Now, I'm a pretty fast and avid reader. But you can't learn the same things in a book or on the Internet that you can in a personal talk with somebody.”