Quotes About Risk

I have a saying: There are no brave old people in finance. Because if you're brave, you mostly get destroyed in your 30s and 40s. If you make it to your 50s and 60s and you're still prospering, you have a very good sense of how to avoid problems and when to be conservative or aggressive with your investments.

One of the big problems we had during the financial crisis was the intermingling of banks and holding companies and complex securities.

Japan's biggest problems are conservatism and cowardice.

All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgements of probabilities, and not on certainties.

When given age-appropriate challenges, children tend to take them very seriously; in fact, the more obvious the risk is, the more cautiously a child will proceed.

Before I made 'Sweetback,' I had a three-picture deal with Columbia and enough juice, if I was real clever with it, to proclaim that I wanted to do an independent film.

And in movies you must be a gambler. To produce films is to gamble.

Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.

'Banshee' was kind of a lark. I was getting paid pretty well to write movies no one was making - and so I decided to try my hand at TV and get paid much less to actually get something produced.

People were like, 'You're crazy. You're going to lose all your credibility and fans.' But I wanted to try new things and make my own music. So I became a producer.

As a producer or financier, you are going to go where you get the best bang for your buck.

A commodity producer should be comfortable being exposed to prices.

If you screw up five films straight, then you're done. It's a business, the producer invests money and you need to make sure his money is recovered and in the process you give out the best film.

The problem is that to be a producer, one must be a gambler, and the greatest French producers were gamblers.

If I feel the part is right, and I know that the producers and the director want me, I'd go for broke. Always.

Producers get very jittery about things.

When I was growing up, I heard horror stories about producers losing their houses overnight. No matter who the family is, hearing of them getting evicted is very sad.

Usually, on Broadway or in Hollywood, you come up with a project, and you have to convince the producers that it's safe.

I don't understand how other producers who have no experience making a musical jump in and produce one.

It's scary being in a room with producers and saying, 'Here's my idea,' when I'm scared to get shot down.

It was an honour to be asked to do 'The Gift.' The producers took a risk asking me because, coming from a comedy background, I am not known for this kind of highly-charged, emotional show.

I'm willing to fail, my producers are willing to fail, my crew is willing to fail.

I often say to people that producing is the best-paid form of cowardice. When you produce things, you almost always get credit if it's a good record, but you hardly ever get the blame if it's not! You don't really take responsibility for your work.

Our goal is not to produce immediate results. We've been tasked with producing long-term results. That means that there's more risk in any individual thing we take on. But we still aspire to a strong return on investment.