Quotes from Lawrence Levy

The problem with success, even a little success, is that it changes you. You are no longer walking along the same precipice that drove you to do great work in the first place. Now you have something to defend: a reputation, money in the bank, a brand, real customer expectations. Success can take the edge away.

There's nothing you can do about where the pieces are," he'd say. "It's only your next move that matters.

Steve once told me that the gestation of great products takes much longer than it appears. What seems to emerge from nowhere belies a long process of development, trials, and missteps.

It's not just about entertainment. It's about telling stories that audiences connect with emotionally. The way to do this is to make our films personal, to make certain they mean something to our directors.

Early in my career I had learned the wisdom of not gripping over the hand I was dealt. I had a mentor who taught me lessons about business and life that served me for years. He looked at business the way a grand master might look at a chessboard. There's nothing you can do about where the pieces are. It's only your next move that matters.

Steve paid attention to every nuance of the slides, even details that, as far as I could tell, were invisible to the naked eye, like font kerning—which is adjusting the space between letters—and font smoothing to make sure the curves on each font were perfect. He hired a presentation professional, Wayne Goodrich, to help finalize these details and to make sure that at every single stop on the road show, all the pieces were in place to show the presentation and video perfectly.

The laws of physics suggest we cannot go in one direction forever. Sooner or later, something will slow us down. Whether it be stocks, housing prices, economies, or entire civilizations, even the biggest boom stall. We build castles, churches, and monuments believing they will last forever; our perception of solidity often belies an underlying movement that is difficult to perceive. Sometimes we can see the wave of change coming. But more often we are swept along in it.

La cultura es la invisible fuerza de la que la innovación depende. Solemos atribuir las invenciones a los individuos, no a las circunstancias. Designamos héroes y contamos sus historias. Pero la innovación es una empresa colectiva, producto tanto de las circunstancias como del genio.

The Middle Way is about finding harmony between the structure that helps us function and the fluidity that opens us up to experience more ease, richness, and connection in our lives

It is easy to lose ourselves in corporate imperatives, to feel we are beholden to forces that might not be aligned with our personal aspirations and priorities, or with how we wish to give expression to our lives.

But for ten minutes I'd been transported somewhere else. Andy's room. A world where toys lived. Had feelings. Had problems. I had no idea who was behind it all, but somewhere in this building there were magicians at work.

Patent licensing was not a business strategy for Pixar. It was a financing strategy, something we would do once or twice to bring in cash, but no more. It would buy Pixar time, not guarantee long-term success.

to bypass theatrical release and go directly to the home video market. Disney had enjoyed great success in recent years with direct-to-home-video releases like The Return of Jafar, a sequel to Aladdin. Because these sequels would not have the benefit of widespread theatrical distribution, they had to be made at far less cost than the original film in order to make financial sense.

Education and material well-being had reached heights that had surely exceeded anything in history, yet we did not seem to have a particular advantage for gaining wisdom, joy and peace of mind.

Going to an investor every month for money was unusual, and probably not much fun, judging from my knowledge of investors in companies that were running out of cash. Ed shifted just a bit in his chair and added, "It's not an easy conversation to have with Steve.

I have just bought into the delusion that these toys are real. And now I'm believing that this one toy, Buzz Lightyear, is himself delusional for not realizing he is just a toy. This was insane.