Daily Inspiration Quote by David O. Selznick

A producer’s insult that still wants credit for being fair. Selznick splits the difference with surgical precision: “good instincts” grants raw talent, animal sense, that hard-to-teach radar for story and audience. Then he yanks the ladder away with “wrong judgments,” the part that actually matters in an industry where power is disguised as “taste.” The line performs a classic Hollywood move: praise as a leash. By acknowledging instinct, he positions himself as the seasoned evaluator; by condemning judgment, he reserves final authority for the people with budgets, contracts, and access.

“She’ll rue the day” is the real tell. It’s not a prediction so much as a threat dressed up as foresight, the paternal curse of an executive convinced that the system will punish any woman who doesn’t take the hint. Selznick is speaking in the voice of the studio era’s informal discipline: careers were made through patronage and broken through gossip, blacklists, and being labeled “difficult.” The sentence assumes a moral universe where outcomes confirm hierarchy. If she fails, it proves he was right; if she succeeds, it’s framed as luck or an exception.

Context matters because Selznick wasn’t just any producer; he was a brand of control, famously hands-on, confident that his judgment was synonymous with quality. The quote’s bite comes from that confidence. He isn’t arguing. He’s closing the door, turning “judgment” into a credential she supposedly lacks, and announcing that consequences will do the persuading for him.