William Michael Gary

“Mara, it’s not an easy life. It breaks you down, builds you up again, and crushes you flat. Great works require great sacrifice. It can be addicting as all hell and I can’t imagine anything more satisfying. But”
― Eliot Peper, Uncommon Stock: Version 1.0

“I’ve never been what I’ll call Mr. Black Power or Mr. Promote That I’m Black. What I do like to promote is that, in my industry, I am the only one who does what I do. I happen to be black. I’m the only chairman of a major label who happens to be black, so it can be a little strange. Every room I go in, I stand out. If I have a cold, it’s pneumonia when I walk in. I never feel like I’m one of the boys or a member of the club. I’ve always felt like the odd man out. I know that some of that is insecurity. I always know that I can’t slip up, because I won’t get the brother pass. One”
― L.A. Reid, Sing to Me: My Story of Making Music, Finding Magic, and Searching for Who's Next

“At the Super Bowl that year, three young girls ran up to me, all excited. “Oh my god,” said one. “You’re Aaron Reid’s father.” On one hand, it made me chuckle, but on the other, it kind of got to me. It might sound petty, but it touched a nerve because, in truth, I was struggling a bit with not getting recognized for what I’d accomplished.”
― L.A. Reid, Sing to Me: My Story of Making Music, Finding Magic, and Searching for Who's Next

“It is driven not by a small band of men but by a concept that has become accepted as gospel: the idea that all economic growth benefits humankind and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits. This belief also has a corollary: that those people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for exploitation.”
― John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man