Peter Guber – 15 Quotes

15 Quotes by Peter Guber

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.

– Peter Guber

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.

– Peter Guber

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.

– Peter Guber

Beside every great success are the seeds of enormous failure. In every failure, there’s the opportunity seeds of great success. They’re not miles apart. So if they’re that close together, and if you’re really working, you’re always gonna have that likelihood that something’s not going to work.

– 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.

– Peter Guber

Nothing drew me to the film business. I was propelled by the fear and anxiety of Vietnam. I had been drafted into the Marines. My brother was already serving in Vietnam. I bought, if you will, a stay of execution – both literally and figuratively – and went on to graduate school of business from the law school that I was attending.

– Peter Guber

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.

– Peter Guber

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.

– Peter Guber

The idea is, we’re still a society where we recognize and see and even sometimes seek members of our own tribe, whatever that tribe is. It could be ethnic, religious, geographic, political.

– Peter Guber

Social cohesion was built into language long before Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter – we’re tribal by nature. Tribes today aren’t the same as tribes thousand of years ago: It isn’t just religious tribes or ethnic tribes now: It’s sports fans, it’s communities, it’s geography.

– Peter Guber

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

– Peter Guber

I think any new technology that helps connect and create social cohesion is great. But at the end of the day, you and I are analog creatures. We have to take ‘oohs and aahs’ and convert them to 0s and 1s and then convert them back to ‘oohs and aahs.’ Narratives that work in social networks are the exchange of stories that are told well.

– Peter Guber

Language is a more recent technology. Your body language, your eyes, your energy will come through to your audience before you even start speaking.

– Peter Guber

Use state-of-the-heart technology online and offline to turn listeners into viral advocates and customers into raving fans.

– Peter Guber

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.

– Peter Guber