Ari Emanuel > Quotes

“So why would I be any less loyal to myself? To betray yourself is the ultimate betrayal.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“People used to be shocked by my obsessions, my irrationality, my inability to find contentment. Now it’s just my reputation. And it always precedes me. At a charity event to raise money for kids, and to honor Ricky, Conan gives a very moving speech about Ricky, who guided him through the crisis with NBC. I can’t tell you what this man means to me, as a human being, Conan says. Then, pausing, frowning, Conan shrugs. I don’t know, he says, maybe Ricky just seems like a nice guy compared to Ari.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“All this talk, talk, talk with Strickler and Ricky about starting our own thing—what have we been waiting for? It’s so clear now: Life is not a dress rehearsal.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Upon waking, drink two bottles of mineral water, do forty minutes of stretching, do ten minutes of dynamic warm-ups, do a regimen of extremely difficult breath work, then dive into the sauna, then twenty minutes of meditation, then ten minutes in the ice plunge, then twenty minutes of infrared light therapy, then a protein shake with coffee and vitamins, topped off with a cup of live worms, to eat the bad bacteria in my gut.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“How will people access these ten thousand networks? The author, George Gilder, predicted we’ll all walk around with little handheld electronic devices, hybrid phone-computer-TV gizmos, which he called teleputers.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Human beings want. That’s what it is to be alive. The relentless longing for balance, homeostasis, which can never be achieved. Our superpower as a species is dissatisfaction; it’s how we came to dominate the planet, for better and worse.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“We want something we don’t have, we want something we used to have, we wish we didn’t have something that we can’t seem to get rid of, and this leads to frustration, which leads to anxiety, which leads to rage, and finally action. Action! The most ubiquitous word in Hollywood. (No coincidence it’s often shouted.)”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“I’m a great believer in serendipity, and you’ve got to be there, in the room, at the table, sharing air with the person, for serendipity to kick in.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“For all my battles with death, my victories over death, as 2008 ends I feel dead. Deep fatigue. Push through, keep moving. Fight and claw, but never seem to feel at my peak and don’t know why. There are days when I don’t know how I’m going to make it to my 7:00 p.m. bedtime.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Every deal’s imperfect because we are imperfect. · Which is how I feel about Trump. Not the deal I wanted, not the deal I would’ve negotiated for America, if America were my client. But it’s the deal we’ve got. It’s where we’ve ended up. · The job isn’t making a perfect deal. It’s making the best deal you can, under the circumstances, then living with whatever comes of that. You got the better deal? Congrats. Now pipe down and move on, because your day’s coming. You got fucked? Condolences. Now go out and get even. And if you can’t get even, the flowchart says you’re down to one option. Get over it. ·”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“The calling. My God, the constant calling. So much calling. Are you happy, Larry? Are you happy, Larry? I can’t. I will make you my agent if you just promise to stop calling. Just leave me the fuck alone!”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Three days a week I add in some time in a hypobaric chamber, which takes me to a simulation of twenty-four thousand feet above the earth—to strengthen my lungs. Sort of like climbing Everest, which is a great fucking workout but an even better fucking metaphor. If possible, always start your day with a fucking metaphor. ·”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“but I truly feel that these men, despite their personal and political histories and the ancient hostilities between their ancestors and mine, have treated me with nothing but courtesy and respect. And grace. They’ve given me the greatest gift. Reserved judgments. It chokes me up. A matter of infinite hope. ·”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“And every three months I do a hardcore forty-eight-hour fast. (Sometimes seventy-two.) · People ask if I want to live forever. Fuck no, I tell them. I just want to feel alive for as long as I live. · But also, yeah, I’d like to live forever.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Lastly I go into the office, where I roll the day’s first calls from my treadmill desk. About 8:30, I permit myself to have my first food of the day and I don’t eat again until dinner. Both meals vegan.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“I'm satisfied at times and I'm happy at times. I'm not sure if you're really engaged in life you're happy.”
― Ari Emanuel

“Never hurry, never rest, someone famous said—it could be my father’s epitaph.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Professor Nohria citing articles, books, poems. He mentions that he’s currently reading a wonderful novel by Thomas Mann. Buddenbrooks. One of the greatest books ever written about money and business, he says. The saga of a large German family and its grain business, the novel describes the inexorable draining of family wealth, the entropy of money, which even today is called the Buddenbrooks effect. Everything breaks down. Success is a state of mind, a moment you savor, not a mansion you own.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“No. Fuck no. Quite the contrary. Loving forgetfulness of self, that’s how one Victorian philosopher described the thing we learn from having a family. But Noah’s first night I’ve never been more intensely aware of myself.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Footnote: Shirley kept plugging. Movies, radio shows, including one with the great comedian Fred Allen, and it was Fred who said, All the sincerity in Hollywood you could stuff in a flea’s navel and still have room left to conceal eight caraway seeds and an agent’s heart.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Ari, are you really telling me, on my birthday, that my dog is going to die? I don’t want you to be sad when Flea dies, that’s all, so—say hello to Sandwich. Of course I’m going to be sad when Flea dies! I’m going to be devastated. That’s why I got you Sandwich! Ari, stop. This way when Flea dies— Stop saying Flea is going to die! We’re all going to die, Staud. Oh my God, I cannot even— But especially Flea. Have you looked at Flea lately?”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Back in L.A., feeling very unserene. I work on my ego. On not thinking about my ego. But it’s hard. My ego won’t leave me alone. It calls me constantly, the way I call other people.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“I’m still not sure what I want to be in this world. But of all the things I don’t want to be, obsolete tops the list.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“There is no little enemy. So why would I be any less loyal to myself? To betray yourself is the ultimate betrayal.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“A friend tells me that in ancient Rome, when the emperor would return from far-off wars and don the laurel crown and drive his chariot down the main via to cheers from the populi, there was always someone in the back of the chariot, crouched behind the emperor’s ear, whispering— You are mortal.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Well, Mr. President…haha…let me just say that I’m not as smart as you. But with all due respect…you’re not 5 percent wrong, you’re not 10 percent wrong, you’re 100 percent wrong. I can hear Shapiro’s intestines constricting. I can see Jennifer praying for the floor to swallow her. I can feel all the people around me and behind me pressing their shoulder blades against the wall. Another mazel-to-the-Arabs moment. Obama stares at me for several beats and then turns to Shapiro and puts a hand on his forehead. I’m reliving, he says, the Rahm days. Laughter. Especially loud among the cabinet members and staffers who remember Rahm. You don’t know, Obama says to Shapiro, what those meetings were like. I do, Shapiro says. I really do, Mr. President. No, Obama says, you can’t possibly understand. The way he’d grind me every day. Mr. President, believe me, I understand. If I don’t like being told that I’m wrong, neither does the forty-fourth president, and now he’s been told twice in the last three minutes that he’s mistaken.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Larry says, I know this man’s family. Such normal, wonderful people. The brothers, devoting their lives to serving their country and improving the health and quality of people’s lives…The kids, I’ve watched them grow up. Such great kids. Such a great family. And yet I’ve spent hours wondering how this anomaly could’ve occurred.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Opening night’s always just ahead. Next week, next month, we’ll get this thing right. Places, everybody! Let’s run through it one more time! From the top!”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir

“Wiatt seizes any opportunity to deliver his autobiography. His love language is filibuster.”
― Ari Emanuel, Roll the Calls: A Memoir