Mel Brooks Writes It All Down

Loved this passage and its relevance to Product development in particular:

> I’d learned one very simple trick: say yes. Simply say yes. Like Joseph E. Levine, on “The Producers,” said, “The curly-haired guy—he’s funny looking. Fire him.” He wanted me to fire Gene Wilder. And I said, “Yes, he’s gone. I’m firing him.” I never did. But he forgot. After the screening of “Blazing Saddles,” the head of Warner Bros. threw me into the manager’s office, gave me a legal pad and a pencil, and gave me maybe twenty notes. He would have changed “Blazing Saddles” from a daring, funny, crazy picture to a stultified, dull, dusty old Western. He said, “No farting.” I said, “It’s out.”

I would have loved for the first question to be worded more MelBrookish, e.g.:

You’re publishing your autobiography at the age of ninety-five. Why the rush?

Just saying Yes saved my ass countless times over the years