“If it bleeds, it leads.”
Loder is already working as a news stringer when Lou Bloom stumbles up an opportunity and seizes it. The first and most important lesson he learns comes the veteran who informs him that nothing is more likely to sell and be used as the opening story on a newscast than some incident in which blood was shed. Unlike Loder, Lou proceeds to take this advice to the extreme and see how far he can get.
“The best and clearest way that I can phrase it for you, to capture the spirit of what we air, is think of our news cast as a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut.”
Nina is the morning news director of a local TV station and she follows fast upon Joe’s somewhat rather vaguer, slogan-esque depiction of just what it is the station is likely to buy. Nina’s graphic metaphor for her industry comes as a response to Lou’s one word query constructed in a haze of newbie naivete: “Bloody?”
“You see, Rick, they've done studies, and they found that in any system that relies on cooperation, from a school of fish or say even a professional hockey team for example, these experts have identified communication as the number one single key to success.”
Do a little search on the Internet one day combining this quote with something like “motivational quotes” and you just may be surprised at how many hits you get. The really amazing thing about those who have taken this quote to heart and transformed it into a literal piece of advice for becoming a success in the business world is how few of them even comment about the irony—perhaps because they missed it entirely. The fact is that Lou is doling out some business advice referencing the universal “they” that people who want you to think what they say should be believed because they are providing “references.” Lou conveys the result of these studies, but does Rick go home later that night and look it up to make sure Lou knows what he’s talking about? Probably not. Ultimately, yes, Lou becomes a success. But that success is in spite of his being a really terrible communicator, not because he is a great communicator. You might want to avoid getting your advice on who to succeed in business from sites that list “great” motivation quotes.
“A friend is a gift you give yourself.”
Contrary to what many may believe, this is not an original quote conceived for the film. And, in fact, it is a quote that really depends on familiarity of the origin to make the point. The phrase was coined by author Robert Louis Stevenson and the implied meaning is that when you make a friend, you have received a gift. Lou, ever the self-involved narcissist sociopath, twist the advice around so that it becomes a tangle corruption of what Stevenson meant. Lou is clearly not an idiot and he very likely read the quote rather than hearing it somewhat and it has stuck with him as motivational advice. But in his twisted mind, the meaning becomes the exact opposite: every friend you make is a gift that can be opened, used and tossed away when no longer wanted or needed. Again, be wary of accepting any motivation advice from a person who views Lou as an icon of success.
