Daily Inspiration Quote by James L. Brooks

A line like this only lands because it’s built as a brag disguised as a confession. James L. Brooks admits he pitched a “marketing idea” that “everybody hated,” then pivots to the punchline: “decency is sexy.” The whiplash is the point. It captures an old Hollywood paradox Brooks helped make profitable: the most bankable emotional hit is often the one executives are embarrassed to pitch.

Brooks’s career - from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Terms of Endearment to As Good as It Gets - is basically a long argument that warmth, restraint, and moral attention can draw crowds without turning into syrup. The phrase “decency is sexy” reframes virtue as desire, not duty. It’s not “be good,” it’s “goodness has pull.” In an industry trained to sell transgression, cynicism, or edge as the default engine of attention, he’s claiming decency can be the hook that cuts through noise.

The subtext is partly defensive, partly strategic: if “everybody hated” the idea, then the idea is either naive or threatening. Decency threatens the easy story producers tell themselves about audiences - that viewers only want ugliness, scandal, or cruelty dressed up as “realism.” Brooks suggests the opposite: people crave characters who try, who fail with some dignity, who treat others like they matter. Even as a marketing slogan, it’s a tiny manifesto: sentiment isn’t the enemy of sophistication; it’s the risk that makes a story feel alive.