Dawn Steel

“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.”

“That's my proudest accomplishment: that I don't feel like a grown-up.”

“An epic is the canvas Brian DePalma paints on.”

“It hurt me deeply, this reputation as tough, hard, mean.”

“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 react to stress badly. I handle it better these days. But I'm a very straightforward person.”

“I love stories about underdogs.”

“We manufacture a culture in the movie business, and whatever we put out creates a dark side and a bright side, too.”

“I think exciting sexuality is part of the fantasy, part of the entertainment of a love story.”

“Dishonesty, lack of integrity catches up with you.”

“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.”

“We have to make some movies we have passion for, respect for.”

“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.”

“A really hard lesson to learn is that most of the time, it's not about you.”

“I hate management. I hate management. I just do.”

“Some friends of mine had parents who made school a treat, a gift - not something to be endured.”

“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.”

“I had an obsession with underarm shields - pointy ones, round ones, full ones, half ones.”

“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.”

“It's unfathomable how you live without your mother.”