Quotes from Dawn Steel

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.

An epic is the canvas Brian DePalma paints on.

It's about passion, and if somebody is passionate about a development deal, they're going to get it made.

People on the lower rungs are more vulnerable to sexual harassment than those at the top.

Some children's music is aimed just at kids, and it can be very childlike.

What sets Iris Stevenson apart is her success in a system that in no way supports her - with the hardest possible children to convert.

Having money is better than not having it, but I've been poor, and I've survived.

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.

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.

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?

When I get anxious and scared, I probably lose my temper more than I should.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

If the doors are going to close on me, it's a little late.

I have to tell you, I'm a great teacher. Ask anybody who worked for me, except some secretaries who weren't very good.

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.

Working together is the quickest road to marital problems.

I'm tired of being the bad guy all the time, saying 'no' to people I like.

If you can market smut and toilet paper, you can market movies.

The men I worked for didn't look at me as having any gender at all. They regarded me more as a workhorse.