James Laughlin Quotes

Ask your agent to set up a meeting with either your editor or the marketing department of the house or both so you can find out what they're doing, what they aren't, and what you can do to help.

I have an amazing team; I have amazing producers; I have amazing writers, but at the end of it, it's me making the decisions on the writing, the tone, the editing.

The funny thing about directing is that you have your own opinions, but it's a collaboration. Directing is a group effort. Even though you might think something works, the smartest thing you can do as a director is try and weigh the opinions of the people around you.

Just because a group does not take its decisions by voting does not mean they have no understanding of the essence of democracy.

We see them when they come to New York. They stay at my wife's apartment. We have quite a correspondence with them at all times. They play a very important role, the authors in the firm, because so much of the material we publish is suggested by them.

If everyone in the party has to agree on everything, that’s going to be a very small party.

You can get together, you can talk as much as you want, but if there's not a decision-making process - that's where democracy really matters.

Getting out any weekly magazine requires many hours of reading, choosing, discarding, and thinking beyond the obvious.

In animation, there's not a medium I believe that's more collaborative. It is a team of people, of different disciplines, coming together. The decisions are made by consensus in many cases. My job as a director is to exercise the best judgement I can in terms of which decision is the best one to make for the movie.

I have always believed in evolving a consensus before taking any major decision.

I believe in discussing very thoroughly what should be the goal. When discussing it, I allow others to give their views.

The era of roadside decisions, declarations have gone. My government's decisions will be guided by teamwork and consultations.

As always, a lot of bad books will be published. Some good books will be published, and you have to seek them out.

When we come into the NSC, everybody has different opinions. At the end of the day, we present the president with all the facts. We let him make the decision. And we all, as a team, go out and support that decision.

I don't have to come up with the best idea. It is my job to make sure that it is always the best idea that wins.

Surrounding yourself with a great team that is really discerning and not pushing or rushing into a certain direction that doesn't seem like a progressive flow is really important.

My secret weapon is my wife. She's the best judge. She's a scientist and a natural reader. We've developed a detailed code for how she marks a manuscript, and I think it's what saves me from wild digressions.

The way I feel about rehearsals is that the best idea wins.

No book I publish will be perfect, but I need to feel I've taken it as far as I can.

It is not true that I dictate what should be done. There is a dialogue.

There's a curiosity about what magazine editors do, the behind-the-curtain experience.

In business, there's a saying: 'Disagree and commit.' It means that everyone should speak up before a decision is made. But once the boss has decided, you all get behind it to make it happen.

I really enjoy doing the action stuff, but you have to be careful about who you say yes to with the action stuff 'cause some people want to do it but don't know how, and then it just becomes incredibly frustrating.

I run the material, always with two people, sometimes three. We all see things so differently, so to get a couple of people's perspectives on what I'm doing and the material itself is insanely helpful for honing in on what to take into the audition room.

I mean, I didn't feel, as part of Girls Aloud, that my opinion wasn't heard, or they went and did certain things and I had no say, or we had no say.