Quotes from Peter Guber

Well, the idea is that failure is an inevitable partner on the road to success and, if you're not willing to confront failure, you can never find out how good you are.

Are you motivated? Are you coherent? Is your intention aligned? Are your feet, tongue, heart and wallet congruent? That intention shines through.

I've worked with Jack Warner and Jimmy Stewart - and Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Johnny Depp twice. I've had dinners with Fred Astaire and Cary Grant.

The reality is that every movie is a new business. Nobody says, 'Hey, let's go down to the Pantages Theater, I hear a Warner Brothers picture is playing there.' Or, 'Let's go to this theater, I hear the film came in on budget.' It'd be ridiculous.

We tend to become social core groups, whatever our similar interest and background where we came through. It tends to be a filter through which people see themselves. It can be all different ethnicities. They can see themselves as San Franciscans, or Warriors fans. You want to build a tribe of viral advocates for that team.

Most young people haven't used their storytelling skills since they were 8 or 9 or 10 and wanted to persuade Mom and Dad to take them to the ball game.

I was born curious.

Every journey that is successful has culs-de-sac and speed bumps. I carry a wisdom gene through my life through the good, the bad, and the ugly.

My mom used to tell me stories at night, read books to me - and I read 'em over and over and over again. And you know what I learned from that? I went back and looked at everything - Why do I like reading the same stories over and over and over again? What, was I some kind of nincompoop? No - the narrative gave me connection with my mom.

Think about all the great leaders. Think about Obama. Think about Clinton. Think about Nelson Mandela. Think about all the people that we know who are very successful in business, in politics and religion. What are they? They tell purposeful stories. They move people to action by aiming at the heart.

Telling purposeful stories is interactive. It's not a monolog. Ultimately, purposeful tellers must surrender control of their stories, creating a gap for the listener(s) to willingly cross in order to take ownership. Only when the listener(s) own the tellers' story and make it theirs, will they virally market it.

At Casablanca we did 'Midnight Express,' 'Flashdance,' and 'The Deep.' My willingness for risk has always been my strength.

There's a sense of aliveness that comes from connection, shared experience. And you see it in every place. You see it when ball players jump up and down, gather at home plate, hugging, and it's not just because they're winning, it's that shared moment, that feeling of - we enter the world alone, we leave alone.

In any situation that calls for you to persuade, convince or manage someone or a group of people to do something, the ability to tell a purposeful story will be your secret sauce. Telling to win through purposeful stories is situation, industry, gender, demographic, and psychographic-agnostic. It's an all-purpose, everyone wins tool.

When somebody is enthusiastic about a job opportunity - but gives off the feeling that this is not the only one they have on the table - they become more seductive in the employer's eyes. You become more desirable because it shows that you're making a conscious and thoughtful decision for the right reasons.

Nothing replaces being in the same room, face-to-face, breathing the same air and reading and feeling each other's micro-expressions.

I never look in the rearview mirror.

The portal into people's hearts is being interested in them.

Without social cohesion, the human race wouldn't be here: We're not formidable enough to survive without the tactics, rules and strategies that allow people to work together.

A gun can be dangerous. But a gun can protect you, you can hunt for food with it - you know, the tool itself is a tool. The intention of the party using the tool is a part of the process, right? You know: the knife cuts the steak, stabs the person, saves somebody from danger, cuts somebody out of a car.

So when you tell a joke, you want to make someone laugh, or if you tell a story about someone who had a heart attack, it may be because you want the listener to exercise. Stories are tools to create social cohesion and to get humans to strategize together.

People love to be swept off their feet, to go into an environment where they've never been, to experience things they only dream about. And filmmaking offers that potential.

Stories aren't the icing on the cake; they are the cake!

Truth is a point of view, but authenticity can't be faked.