Quotes from Michael Eisner

We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective.

I grew up Jewish. I am Jewish. I went to an Episcopal high school. I went to a Baptist college. I've taken every comparative-religion course that was available. God? I have no idea.

The odds of being successful are the same for every group that is educated in America. It's just that the group that is not wealthy is 95 percent of the population. So if there are 100 successful people in a room, probably 95 out of 100 came from more modest means.

It is rare to find a business partner who is selfless. If you are lucky it happens once in a lifetime.

Well, when you're trying to create things that are new, you have to be prepared to be on the edge of risk.

Over time, the product we produce has been consistently successful here in America and around the world. Apparently, we are doing something right.

You just have to make sure the model you're working on does not undersell your product.

Succeeding is not really a life experience that does that much good. Failing is a much more sobering and enlightening experience.

My best idea was to not accept my wife's negative reaction when I asked her to marry me.

My strength is coming up with two outs in the last of the ninth.

Recovering from failure is often easier than building from success.

I find that, once you get into a position where you can afford a pair of shoes and a decent level of living, success in itself is empty.

Doing stuff that I don't have to talk about because I'm not in a public company is fantastic.

Many people you think are individual achievers in fact have either a strong spousal partner over many years or a business partner who's either in the background, not given enough publicity or less egocentric.

We cannot escape that Hollywood is in the middle of a wave of technological change. The current angst over all the implications of new entertainment technology is nothing new.

A brand is a living entity-and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures.

Graduate school is a place to hide for a couple of years.

21 years as CEO is a long time. I was and probably still am the longest serving CEO in America. Certainly I am in the media industry, bar none.

There's no good idea that can't be improved on.

I gravitate toward the team thing. I'm not a golfer - I much prefer basketball.

If you're soft and fuzzy, like our little characters, you become the skinny kid on the beach, and people in this business don't mind kicking sand in your face.

There's a fine line between what would characterize you as a troglodyte and what would characterize you as a brilliant, avant-garde, forward-thinking genius. There's some middle ground.

A company that pays attention to the family unit is a successful company. We don't isolate the family. We don't make rides that say, 'Hey mom, dad, you go sit on the bench.'

When I read biographies, I'm only interested in the first few chapters. I'm not interested in when people become successful. I'm interested in what made them successful.